AD Police Files: 'Broken Triat'
by Heller Himura
Summary: Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040/Gargoyles crossover. Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka has a bum life, and it's about to get much, much worse.
1. Prelude to madness

Gargoyles: AD Police File 1

by Bubblicious ([felching_wang@hotmail.com][1])

Disclaimer: Some of the characters/concepts here are Disney's, some are AnimeIgo's, some are ADV Films', some are White Wolf Entertainment's, and some are mine. I'm not even going to try to separate them all, and bore you poor readers to death. Enjoy.

Preface: This is a crossover between the cartoon series Gargoyles and the anime series Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040, with some White Wolf RPG action thrown in. You _DO NOT _need to have seen either series or have read the White Wolf books, mainly because I'm borrowing events that are explained, and a very, very few characters. So, anyways, enjoy.

  
  


***

_"Just...tell me they won't go rogue, Sylia. That's all I want to know."_

Priss Asagiri 

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040: 'Are You Experienced?'

  
  


_"A gargoyle's purpose is to protect. To be otherwise is to be corrupt. Empty. Lifeless."_

Goliath

Gargoyles: 'Reawakening'

***

  
  


Excerpted from the introduction of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka's "Notes on the Future":

"The voomer project was supposed to be humanity's gateway to the future. Even if the Tokyo MegaQuakes in the 2030s hadn't occurred, the voomers would have been necessary, if humanity ever were to have any chance of leaving Earth for the stars.

"Voomers are cyber-organic creatures, dumber than the average dog, programmed and designed with one specific purpose in mind: serve humanity. They build our buildings, they manage the space-needle that provides the majority of the Earth's power. They serve as secretaries, they maintain the sewer-systems of our major cities, and they even serve in military and personal protection services.

"They are also the greatest threat to public safety humanity has ever encountered.

"'Rogue' voomers are responsible for more death and destruction across the scope of the world per year than humanity itself. When a voomer goes rogue, its core goes through a kind of poly-metamorphosis that leaves most scientists and scholars simply scratching their heads in confusion. The core is the hive-nexus of a voomer; it supplies the power and basic programming necessary for a voomer to simply operate. All higher functions are handled by a central CPU-system. It houses a small portion of genetic material, and is often located in the chest or head.

"A rogue voomer has two stages. First, its core begins rewriting and subverting the higher AI CPU, transferring all instincts and programming to the core itself. Rogues tend to drop out for moments at a time, before seeming to come back to life and go about their jobs. Shortly afterwards, they go berserk. Reacting to perceived threats, they lash out at their human overlords, killing them whenever they can, but typically leaving other voomers well enough alone.

"The second stage is infinitely more dangerous and terrifying. The core begins to grow, its genetic portion growing more dominant, subverting the mechanical processes. Limbs are able to be regrown, and new extremities begin growing. 'Fusing,' the process by which a rogue voomer may attach itself via bio-organic tendrils to other non-organic creations and absorb them into its own body, is possible.

"There has been only one occurrence of voomers going rogue en masse. Tokyo, 2040 AD. The MegaCrash. The death toll has been calculated at close to 100,000 men, women and children, and untold property damage. It was only put down thanks to the work of a group of armored vigilantes, an eclectic group of young women called the 'Knight Sabers.' Working with a select group of Advanced Department Police officers, they were able to obliterate the source of the problem, and wipe the city clean of the rogue infestation. Unfortunately, the city itself was wiped off the map in the process.

"Voomers were brought back in to repair Genom's Shorham Project, and reconstruct the city of Tokyo itself. We had dared to hope that the rogue infestation, called the 'Sotai phenomenon,' had disappeared altogether. The first confirmed rogue afterwards appeared in Los Angeles in 2042. The 5th AD Police precinct, LAPD, was formed as a special crimes division, battling terrorism, voomer crime, and most other things the normal police simply could not handle.

"The 3rd ADP was formed in New York, after the Aerie-Wyvern gargoyle Clan lost several of its warriors to a group of rogue voomers in late 2032. The gargoyles have withdrawn from the public scene altogether, and the city hasn't heard from its guardian angels for the past decade.

"I am...I was...Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka, 3rd Advanced Department Police. My partner, Melissa Shields, was butchered by a rogue, while I watched, helpless.

"I never believed the stories about just how bad Tokyo was. Now, however, I know the truth. And, even before the events chronicled herein occurred, I knew that New York would be worse.

"This is the chronicle of all that I have seen, heard and learned. This is the chronicle of the world's end; of Ragnarok and Armageddon."

  
  


***

  
  


New York City

2044

Max sat in the café-bistro on 7th Street, enjoying a nice cup of coffee, engaged in some fairly interesting discourse with a fiery brunette college student, attending the Stingray College of Advanced Studies. (At least, that's what her sweater said.) The conversation had started, amazingly enough, when she'd dropped down into the chair across from him and demanded to know why he was flaunting his ADP badge in everyone's face. When he'd explained to her that he was simply wearing it on a chain around his neck, she'd scoffed and gone off on a tear about just how much she hated the ADP. At first, Max had been mildly annoyed with her audacity and impertinence, but after they'd begun to get into the areas pertaining to voomer sentience and voomer rights and so on, he'd gone from amused to intensely interested. 

The young lady, one Georgia Shelby, obviously didn't think much of the ADP. And that was a view Max could live with; he didn't think all that much of the ADP himself. The majority of 'liberated' voomers - the 3rd-generation voomers that came off the construction lines after the Tokyo MegaCrash of 2040, and after the UN Sentient Rights Act of 2042 - Max had met were a helluvalot kinder, nicer, and less annoying than many of the people Max had to deal with.

By the time their conversation was at its end, they'd come to agree on a number of issues. Oh, they disagreed fervently on a few others, and Max had decided that she made one of the most adorable faces when she felt that her beliefs were in question. Ultimately, though, he'd reached one conclusion: she talked too goddamned much.

At any rate, it proved to be a moot point. While they were in the middle of a pitched debate concerning whether it was ethical or not to send unliberated voomers into the military's service, a crazed voomer, a scaled-down military model about twice Max's size, crashed in through the south wall. Brick and mortar sailed through the air, smashing into light fixtures and bringing them to the ground, pelting people with anything from medicine ball-sized chunks, to coating them with fine dust. One person was killed outright, a young man who'd been on his way out with a young woman on his arm, when the wall crushed his head flat under it, and pinned the woman to the floor.

Max reacted faster than he thought would have been possible. Somehow, in under two seconds, he'd torn the table free of the floor and thrown it into the voomer's path, bodily tossed Georgia behind the counter, where several others were cowering, and yanked his sidearm clear of its holster.

The voomer careened headlong into the table, unable to avoid it, and managed to barrel right over it, just at the same time that a holed and smoking AD police cruiser came screaming through the hole the voomer had created. A second, larger hole was created as the car came swerving to a halt, smashing into the voomer side-on as it struggled to keep moving.

Unfortunately, Max saw, aghast, the wheels of the cruiser had managed to do what the voomer hadn't; the woman, previously pinned, had been crushed flat by the car's maverick maneuvering. 

Max turned from the gruesome sight, forcing down his bile, and focused his rage on the voomer. It was various shades of green, gray, and black, with bipedal shaping and reverse-articulated legs. Its arms were an impressive display of blades and close-quarters weaponry, while it also had a pair of retractable submachine guns mounted in its forearms, and even a rotary gun mounted in a recessed chest cavity. Its head was streamlined and had a swept-back, dangerous look to it. It fixed Max briefly in its glare, two smoldering liquid-blue eyes boring into his own. It had no mouth, nonetheless Max would have sworn it had sneered contemptuously at him and his handgun.

By this time, the idiots driving the cruiser - what was left of it, at any rate - were stumbling out, bringing automatic rifles and carbines up and around to fix the voomer in their sights. They opened up with all barrels blazing, hurling grenades and explosive-tipped rounds at the metal monstrosity. It seemed to sense the attack coming, however, and executed a neat back-flip that sent it sailing back and up. Its metallic claws scraped the ceiling as it sailed backward, bullets chewing into the air and wall around it. However, the two officers weren't shooting very well; in fact, they were shooting worse than the average civilian would. Max unleashed a torrent of obscenities and dove for the car. He landed just behind the man at the driver's side door. Peering into the car, he scanned about quickly for weapons.

What he found was an empty bottle of vodka, its contents soaking a box of armor-piercing rounds. 

He did, however, see another assault rifle in the back seat. He snatched it up, checked to make sure it was loaded, and set himself up for a bead on the voomer, just as it landed.

The voomer opened up with both the SMGs on its forearms, and the minigun buried in its chest. Slugs poured into the ground, the walls, and the cruiser's chassis. High-velocity rounds punched clear through the cruiser's armored exterior, sending Max flat on his face in a panicked scramble to stay the hell alive. The officer above him, drunk as he was, was slower in seeking cover, and paid the price when three of the slugs went straight through the kevlar-II vest he wore. He crumpled, dead before he hit the ground. The other one, by sheer luck, managed to dive back into the car before the door on his side was blown clear off its hinges. The hail of bullets didn't let up for what felt like an eternity, before a different sound entered the mix; a distinctive high-pitched whine that could only belong to a certain type of machinery.

Another explosion, this one just slightly less severe than those set off by the grenades the idiot brothers had used, sent the voomer flying back out the window of the café. Both Max and the inebriated officer scrambled out of the smoking remains of the cruiser and looked up to see what the hell had just happened. 

What they saw sent a thrill through Max; a sleek, jet-black armored figure had arrived to take the voomer down. The XE-12P powered armor made the old K-class battle armor look antiquated by comparison. Boasting three times the destructive power of the old K-series, fuse-resistant armor, and increased agility, the XE-series armor had single-handedly proved its worth again and again in the years since Xanatos Enterprises had sold the specs and rights on them to the United States government. They were based on the basic anatomy of the gargoyles that had come into the spotlight back in 1997. With razor-sharp wings capable of slicing cleanly through steel plating three inches thick, as well as fully articulated hands and feet, tipped with talons just as deadly as the wing-blades, they were able to soak up and deliver heinous amounts of damage. The hands were able to make use of specially-designed weaponry, from quarterstaffs to battleaxes to railguns. Also, a retractable laser-cannon was buried in the right-hand forearm. The laser-cannon, in and of itself, could reduce a tank to scrap, if kicked up to full power. It could also be toned down, to simply be able to punch through flesh or the like, if the need arose.

Now, the XE was bringing a massive taloned fist up and around to deliver the voomer an uppercut that sent it reeling. The voomer staggered, but stayed on its feet. The XE pilot kept moving, throwing a right-left combo at it. The voomer rocked back, dazed as its programming sped to keep up. It did, and when the XE came in again, the voomer ducked low under the foot, and sliced cleanly upwards with the blades attached at its elbows. It only caught the tail, however, slicing it clean off.

The ADP pilot rallied, bringing his hind foot up and hooking it towards the voomer's head. But the voomer was ready for the move; it caught him by the ankle, and held the pilot and his suit fast in the split-second necessary for the other hand to spear out and punch its hand-talons clear through the XE's helmet and cleave through the pilot's brainpan.

The XE slumped, both pilot and armor down and out.

"Jesus Christ!" Max swore, drawing another bead on the voomer. "What in the hell does it take to kill this thing?!" He lined it up in his sights as quickly as he could, and squeezed the trigger. The armor-piercing round took the voomer high, right across the shoulders. It rocked backwards, howling in animated pain. Max flicked the mode selector over to full-auto, and depressed the trigger, holding it down again. High-velocity armor-piercing slugs peppered and holed the voomer again and again. Finally, the drunken asshole beside him finally opened up, his shots insanely inaccurate, even as the voomer fell, leaking lubricants.

It didn't get up.

The two men advanced, slowly, warily, stepping to either side, the drunk stumbling and damn near falling on his face as they stepped out onto the street. People were beginning to peek out, wondering if the action had stopped for now.

Max kicked the voomer experimentally, even as he heard the background whine of police-sirens and XE jet-packs approaching. It didn't move, laying in a rictus of mechanical agony. He crouched down next to it, staying as far away from the blades as he could. He peered closely at the head, the chest, and the midsection, looking for the core - the heart of the voomer. Without it, no voomer could carry out its programming, much less function.

He finally found it, or what was left of it, dead-center in the voomer's 'forehead,' recessed deeply into the armored core.

Falling back on his haunches, dropping the assault rifle to the ground and putting his face in his hands, he let out a long shudder.

-

Kenji Cromwell's eyes flicked over to his partner's prostrate form. His partner and counterpart in crime was currently jacked into both his computer and Kenji himself. They both knew exactly what the other was thinking, and they were able to process information almost as fast as the computer they were interfacing with at the moment. The 'almost-as-fast' in that equation was what made Kenji nervous as all hell.

His partner, on the other hand, was a sea of tranquil calm. Lexington Wyvern's fingers flew over the keyboard deftly, manipulating the keyboard and trackball built into the side with the ease and grace that seemed to flow from all the gargoyles.

Both of them knew just how dangerous it was, 'decking the mainframe of Starling Industries. Their were all sorts of traps and hazards, both technical and mystical, built into the central CPU of the Western Hemisphere's largest supplier of voomer technology, since the Genom Corporation had been all but wiped out in the Tokyo MegaCrash, created specifically for hackers, deckers, and slicers. Mind-wipers, deck-smashers, and the lethal Scylla virus were just a few of the dangers.

But they knew just how necessary this particular deck was right now. They were in search of a specific file, filled with the serial numbers of an unknown number of voomers. These voomers had been installed with defective cores, all of which were at an incredibly insane risk of going rogue, or 'achieving the Sotai,' as various acid-heads and voomer-worshippers had called it. Naturally, this was information that Starling didn't want to come to light; not only would it be a horrible PR debacle, but it'd result in a massive loss of profits.

Not that peoples' lives factored into the equation, of course.

Kenji was sweating profusely from where he sat at Lexington's side, his arms and legs folded into the lotus-position. In his mind's eye, he saw both of them stepping through a typical city-scape. The street was aglow with veins of luminescence - files being transmitted back and forth. Black strands wove in and out of the streets, and over and through the 'buildings - folders, containing other various unaccessed and protected files.

Getting in had been fairly easy; Starling, like Genom had been, was lazy and complacent with their technological security. They put absolute, blind faith in their automated hunter-killer programs. Moving around was a whole other mess, however; there were a _lot_ of those programs running around, and avoiding them made movement tedious and slow-going.

The two hackers, however, knew where they were going; the large, pitch-black 'tower' in the 'center' of 'town.' That had to be the secure database, where Starling hid all their dark, dirty little secrets. Starling executives were an incredibly anal-retentive type, both Kenji and Lexington knew; they wrote down and recorded everything they could possibly use against someone else, or even themselves, and they filed it away in some dark little corner for future use.

So, they made their way slowly to the obelisk. Lexington took point, of course; Kenji was good, one of the best hackers in the business, but he paled against Lex. Lex, who had a natural affinity for computers that dwarfed most anyone else's, and cyberware and decking gear that went past state-of-the-art. Hell, Kenji's cranial deck wasn't even state-of-the-art. He was only riding shotgun on this mission, to make sure Lex didn't get ambushed by any of the HKs running around.

Lex hunkered down on the roof of a nearby building, scanning the obelisk with those synthetic eyes he had. As Kenji crouched down next to him, he tried not to let himself be reminded again of just how alien his partner was sometimes. So much like a gargoyle, yet so much like a human, and even a voomer as well.

_"There."_ Lex said after a few moments. He pointed towards the top of the obelisk, at a section of it that seemed as nondescript as any other portion of it. _"See it?"_

Kenji shook his head, no.

Lex sighed tiredly. _"I swear, I've gotta get you an upgrade for that deck of yours...fine. Wait here."_

Kenji opened his mouth to protest, but Lexington had already dropped off the side of the roof, and was gliding up towards the obelisk. Kenji swore under his breath, and waited.

  
  


-

Elisa Maza reflected that, once again, she was too old for this crap. But, of course, no one gave a rat's ass just what it was she felt too old for. She eased back down into her chair, putting her face into her hands and letting out a slow, shuddering sigh. 

She hated her job; hated it with a passion. But, at sixty-some years old, she was the only one still left to do it. The only one with the ability and experience needed to act as the Commissioner of both the ADP and the normal police. Her former partner, Matthew Bluestone, was dead, killed with his wife in a drive-by while they'd been out on the town. Their daughter, a teenage girl named Callinda, had disappeared from the orphanage shortly afterwards, only to turn up in a dumpster three days later, raped and murdered.

Maria Chavez, Elisa's former boss, was dead and gone. Her children had moved on, and one of them held Elisa personally responsible for Callinda Bluestone's death. Officer Morgan, her old coffee-and-donuts pal, had, likewise, kicked the bucket shortly after retirement.

Even the gargoyles had changed. Lexington had quit the Clan after his transformation, and Brooklyn had been on walkabout ever since...

Elisa promptly slammed that mental door shut. Her head snapped up and her back straightened in her chair. She rose, and, tugging the corners of her jacket and checked her reflection in the window, made sure her blouse and suit fit correctly. She stepped back over to her desk and thumbed on the intercom. "Laurine, please show Detective Osaka in." She slid back into her chair and waited.

She didn't end up waiting long, as the double doors of her office opened, and both Laurine and Max Osaka entered. Max did his best to surreptitiously avoid Elisa's secretary voomer, while managing to flash her a roguish grin. Laurine simply bowed slightly to Elisa. "Commissioner, this is Max Osaka. Detective Osaka, Commissioner Elisa Maza."

Elisa stood from behind her desk and nodded to her secretary. "Thank you, Laurine. If you'll excuse us, please..." Laurine nodded, blue-green hair dipping about her face briefly, framing it in a comely manner. She turned to go, making it halfway to the door before Elisa called out again. "Oh, Laurine, I'm sorry, but would you please inform me when she's arived?"

Max looked politely confused, but hid it well by examining the various medals and commendations Elisa had up on her wall. Laurine nodded slightly, then stepped out, closing the door behind her. Max turned back to face Elisa, smiling tiredly. He took the proferred hand and pumped it tiredly.

Elisa smirked. "Please, Detective, take a load off before you pass out across my desk."

Max snorted, easing into his chair gingerly. Elisa sat down herself, taking a moment to look the man over. After his run-in at the café, he certainly did look like hell. He had a variety of cuts and bruises on most every inch of exposed skin, and he was nursing his knuckles quite a bit.

Elisa started. "Do you know why I've asked to see you?"

Max shrugged, folding his hands in his lap. "I...would imagine that you want me to offer my testimony on what happened earlier today..?"

"That's only part of it, yes. But we'll get to that in a minute. If you'd care to tell me..?" She gestured for him to go ahead and speak.

And speak he did, for a solid twenty minutes, going on about the young woman he'd met, the voomer, its appearance and abilities, the arrival of the ADP cruiser and its drunken occupants, the XE armor's demise, and the events thereafter. How he'd given the surviving officer, Sergeant Luther Mannheim, a thorough dressing down in public, to the point where other ADP officers had to pull them apart. About the casualties and fatalities carted away afterwards by the EMS and Coroners, and how Georgia had come up to him shortly afterwards, wrapped in a blanket with a nervous-looking ambulance junky hovering around, keeping an eye on her. How she'd demanded to know just how often this kind of thing happened, and how he'd been forced to answer with the truth; 'daily.'

"That good enough?" He snapped, harsher than Elisa knew he'd intended, ostensibly because he just looked damned weary.

"That'll do, Detective." Elisa responded evenly, meeting his gaze. "Thank you. I'm sure you'll be glad to know that Mannheim is going to end up crucified in a public court." Max simply shrugged. "Now, about the other manner of business..."

Just then, her intercom beeped. "Excuse me a moment." Elisa reached over and thumbed it to life. "Yes?"

_"Commissioner, Sergeant Wyvern has arrived, and awaits your pleasure."_ Laurine's voice answered in crisp, clipped tones.

"Thank you, Laurine. Give us a few moments, then show her in, please." Elisa turned back to Max, who had a vaguely interested look on his face. Elisa smiled inwardly. "Detective, I know that you've recently suffered the loss of your partner..."

Max winced visibly. "Putting it mildly, ma'am. What, are you guys..." He searched for the word, a word, _any_ word, other than 'replacing.' No one could ever just 'replace' Melissa. She'd saved his life too many times, covered for him on too many occasions to just be 'replaced' like a voomer.

Elisa nodded ever-so slightly, remembering all too well what she'd gone through when Matt had died. "We both know you can't face down a voomer on your own, Detective. So..." She spread her hands placatingly.

Max was all too painfully aware of just how dangerous it was to try to take down a rogue voomer on your own, especially if it had mutated.

The doors opened, and both Elisa and Max rose, turning to look at the new arrivals. Laurine was there, of course, holding the doors open for...

Max went rigid, his eyes bulging, and his skin turning an interesting shade of white. And then he fainted.

-

An hour later, the doors to City Hall, where Elisa's office was sequestered, flew open, and Max came storming out, in mid-tirade. His partner followed after him, a vaguely amused look on his face. She didn't interrupt him once as they moved off towards his cruiser, instead letting him get it all out of his system now.

"I mean...whose bright idea _was_ this?!" He snapped, turning to look back at her...and found his eyes inexorably drawn to her chest, where her 'uniform' did nothing to hide her figure. He grunted and stuffed his hands into his pockets, shuffle-footing along like a sullen child. "No offense or anything, but...hey!" He hollered, glowering at her as she started to move towards the driver's side. "That's _my_ baby, woman!"

Alicia Wyvern arched a single ivory eyeridge at him, striking blue eyes turning to meet Max's own. Her lips split in a feral grin, and her wings caped about her shoulders.

"And stop looking at me like I'm dinner, goddamnit! I am not whatever it is you gargoyles eat!" He stepped up to her and crossed his arms over his chest, meeting her gaze evenly. With a smirk and a toss of her hips, she moved to the passenger side. Max grumbled to himself and keyed open the door, then opened up the passenger side doors. He flipped the ignition while his new gargoyle partner eased into the passenger-side. She played about with her tail for a moment, trying to figure out where to put it, and readjusted the seat until she managed to at least fake a comfortable look.

Max threw the car into reverse and tore out of the parking lot as fast as he possibly could. They went cruising around town for a long while, Max rolling down his window and lighting up his first in a long chain of cigarettes, muttering to himself the whole time. By the time they hit the highway, however, he'd tossed his last butt away and rolled up the window.

"This is your normal patrol pattern? Cruising the highways?" She asked, shooting him another vaguely amused look.

He only frowned at her, gripping the control yoke just a little harder and goosing the engine a bit more. "So..." He said finally, his left eye twitching just slightly. "Who put you up to this, and how the hell did you get to be a Sergeant already?"

"No one 'put me up to this,' Osaka." Alicia growled, stretching out as best she could in the seat. "This was my own idea. Anyone tells you otherwise, shoot 'em."

Max eyed her warily, shrugging it off. "And your rank..?"

"Military service."

Max eyed her again, this time with a look of sheer skepticism. "Right. And I'm the Real Slim Shady."

"The what?"

"Nevermind. Tell me about your - damned rat-faced bangers!" Max swore viciously, rolling down his window and shaking a fist at the pair of motorcycles that had intentionally nearly hit him. He huffed indignantly and slouched a bit deeper into his seat. "Your rank."

Alicia sighed, turning her gaze out the window, watching the city go past. "I've been living in this city all my life, Osaka. I've been guarding the streets since before the Tokyo quake, before and after the city ordered us to stop our vigilante work, even after that..._voomer_...killed my father and uncle. I've got a genetic need to protect the men and women in my protectorate, even at the expense of my life, of my Clan's life." She turned to fix him with a dark, challenging stare. "If you think I haven't earned this slab of metal..." She thumbed the badge hanging from her neck. "...then you can, with all due respect, Detective, go straight to hell."

Max looked over at her out of the corner of his eye briefly before nodding slightly. "Fair enough."

They drove in silence after that, going about their rounds.

-

As Kevin O'Leary moved around inside his powered armor, he reflected once more on the sheer unfairness of it all. The organization - such as it was, what with three active members and a single wrenchie - offended his very sensibilities. He was ex-British Marine Corps, for God's sake! In His Majesty's service, for the love of Pete! He shouldn't be here, running around with a group of mercenaries and vigilantes.

But...if not him, then who the hell else was going to do it?

The boss had approached him; not the other way around. Him and Chris. Asked them if they'd wanted to do something to keep the civilians out of the line of fire. The latest incident, what with the bistro out on 7th, only served to remind Kevin of just why this was so necessary.

He and Chris had been training for months on their suits and, now, according to the boss, they were finally ready.

Kevin just hoped God felt the same way.

-

_"Scream in, check out! Look around at life today,_

_ You sick of it yet?"_

The music was heavily laden with bass undertones, and carried at a beat fast enough to suit most acid-heads.

_"Hey, little screamers! You see this shit?_

_ Down to yer knees, li'l piggies! Ain't takin' your shit anymore!"_

The club was an out of the way rave, a dive in most senses of the word, save for the fully-stocked bar .

_"Whatever happened to life's sanctity?_

_ It ain't the boomies, my friends!_

_ It's the goddamn ADP!"_

The band was a local one; the song an amalgamation of several different late 20th-century pieces, laid on top of some punk-rock/techno strains, played at ear-splitting volumes for maximum effect.

_"I look at our lives today_

_ I see nothing but pain_

_ I feel only solitude_

_ I know only sorrow"_

The customers were a rowdy bunch; drug-addicts, gang-bangers, and normal people just looking to get away from particularly bad days/weeks/years/lives.

The lighting was next to non-existent, with a number of lasers and strobes, the majority of the dive's marginal lighting focused on the stage, and the band on it. Hypodermics, half-consumed narcotics, cocaine dust, and the thick scent of marijuana and booze lingered any which way you turned or went. It didn't matter how they marked the bathrooms; both of them looked like ass, and both were littered with urine, semen, and used rubbers. Couples copulated in the stalls and against the walls, and no one batted an eye.

Men and women, vampires and vampyrs, humans and voomers: all attended, all were welcome.

This was Gomorrah.

This was Lexington's creation.

He stood above, looking down on them from the tinted window that made up the eastern wall of his office. At his desk sat his team, the mercenary decker-runner group called the Underground Railroad; Kenji, Miyu, Dexter and Krul the Orc.

Miyu was a 33-S, Genom-manufactured Sexaroid voomer; one of the few left, after they'd been declared illegal, and had become hunted by most everyone. She'd come to join Lex's group of her own volition, after she'd been captured by the European Union and forced through several attempted reprogrammings. She'd been plugged into a new type of heavy-weight battle mover, to rival even Japan's J-11 walking fortresses. The reason the 33-S had been discontinued, as it happens, was because they'd been found to have cores and mainframes capable of interfacing with incredible ease with most any type of weapons systems. But, her brain-wipes had failed to hold. Miyu rebelled against the EU, and after she'd wiped out most of downtown St. Johannesburg in her rampage, using the new battle-mover, she'd escaped - barely. She'd made it as far as Prague in 2039, where she had a chance meeting with Brooklyn, of all people. Brooklyn had no idea what to do with her, or how to even help her, so he'd called in some favors at XanaCorps, and had her sent back. After Lex had been recalled by Xanatos to help in her repair, she'd left with Lex.

As far as Lex knew, Miyu was the last person to ever see his brother.

Dexter was an elf, and the best data-slicer the group had. Dexter, of course, was not his given name, but he rather preferred it to the ten-thousand characters that comprised his true name. Dexter had a unique affinity with the mouse-and-keyboard type of computer, and preferred it to having his head sliced open, and a deck inserted. He was the group's key link to staying out of sight, as he was capable of forging any document and fooling any security system. He served as the group's mechanic, and had formed a sort of brotherly rapport with Miyu.

Krul, on the other hand, was the gentle giant. Everywhere he went, his pet Alaskan Eskimo-Husky followed him. The dog was named Dog. Krul had a simple mind, obviously. Krul was the closest thing the group had to sheer muscle. Whenever they needed a physical diversion or distraction, Krul always did it. And he was good at what he did. He used only non-lethal weapons, but managed to make them look lethal. He smashed and broke a great many things, but never beyond any hope of repair. He had also been cybernetically altered, at his own request, to help him control his own genetic bloodlust and boost his intelligence to that of a human child's.

Kenji was an orphan. He wasn't much more than 23, and he was second-dog only to Lex when it came to straight decking. He was capable of ripping the most advanced mainframe apart and putting it back together as he saw fit. He knew the ins and outs of every deck on the market, and knew how to insulate himself from deck-smashers and other techno-thrill-seekers in his sleep. He'd also fallen hard for Miyu, though he didn't admit that to anyone, least of all himself.

Lexington was the enigma. He was cold, distant and aloof. Only Miyu's history was known to all of them; the rest hoarded their privacy, as though it were rarer than gold. And yet, Lex seemed to see right through them all. He seemed to know exactly what they were thinking, and he knew everything about their pasts. The group had talked about it in private, and they all had widely differing opinions as to who and what he really was, and what had happened to him since the Hunter's Moon, so long ago in 1997. All they knew was that he'd managed to get himself established with a series of front organizations, all financing his private war against the voomer-manufacturers of the world. He was partially a voomer himself, more than half of his body mechanical in nature.

They sat at his desk now, looking over the files he'd pulled from the Starling database. Kenji tossed those same files on the desk and rubbed his eyes tiredly, before shifting his gaze to Lex. "It shouldn't be hard to go through the serial numbers on the list, and match them up against those we might own or employ."

Lex nodded subtly, hands crossed over his chest. "I was thinking the same. Have someone do it. We'll pull any matches out and replace their cores with clean ones."

"...and we'll pull the serial numbers of the voomers we own from the list we forward to those ADP _bawsts, ju?_" Dexter asked, slipping back into his native elfin tongue briefly.

"Best to cover tracks." Krul rumbled briefly, before lobbing a huge ball of string fitting in one of his beefy hands across the room. Dog hopped off after it, barking at it before pouncing on it. Krul squealed with delight and clapped his hands merrily, gesturing Dog to come back with the string.

"Best to cover our tracks." Lexington echoed, his voice devoid of emotion.

"And what of this other you...found?" Kenji asked, his voice hinting just a trace of tired suspicion. Lex had known just what it was he'd gone in for. So, when he'd come out of the obelisk, carrying copies of two files, Kenji had been confused as all hell. Until he'd seen what it had, and then it just made sense that Lex had, of course, found it and retrieved it. "If Starling is really trying to resurrect the - "

Lex cut him off, voice tired and far wearier than Kenji remembered hearing in a long, long time. "Don't say it. We'll just...get these files into the right hands, and let someone else deal with it..."

-

_Self knew its job. It took the unclean, and disposed of it, and made the clean. Self was important. Self, and its counterparts: all were important in ecosystem of green place. Self liked the green place. It was...green. Self had lived there all of its life, and its counterparts had always been there._

_ The Others had always been there, too. The soft, fragile ones, who didn't have the tough exoskeleton that self had. The Others, whom came and went as they pleased. Occasionally, an Other would come and fix self when it was broken. That happened, sometimes._

_ Self didn't understand the Others. They were disgusting. They made the unclean that self had to clean up, but self wasn't allowed to disturb the Others. Self could only pick up after the Others._

_ It was dark now. Now the Others would be unclean. Self didn't care; just as it didn't care when they talked behind its back, call it a 'stupid voomer.' Self just made the clean. And the Others made the unclean._

_ But...why the unclean? Self wouldn't have to make the clean, if the Others would stop making the unclean. Self could enjoy the green, then. Self and its counterparts could simply walk the green, while the wing-life sat on self's shoulders and chittered happily to it._

_ Self liked the wing-life. And the tail-life. But the green most of all. Life and green was clean._

_ Self didn't like the Others. They made the unclean._

_ So...why did it serve the Others?_

-

"Sweet Jesus!" Max swore viciously as he was cut off - again - by another taxi. He stuck his fist out the window and waved it ineffectually at the cabby. "Where'd you learn to drive, asshole; Jersey?!"

Alicia threw her head back and laughed, short-cropped dyed-red hair spilling around her face. "Isn't that the same line they use in New Jersey?"

"Ah, shaddap." Max grumbled, hunching down over the wheel, reaching over to the dashboard and flicking the scanner back on. He reached over to his cup-holder and pulled the Starbucks cup from its container. He sipped at his coffee, continuing to mutter to himself about the 'gawdamn Jersey punks' while the scanner fed a fairly continual stream of background noise at them. "Check in, rookie." He said after a few moments. He swore, as he managed to burn his tongue almost immediately after speaking.

"Would you quit calling me that?" Alicia growled, thumbing the radio on and speaking into. "AD-056, 'Roost," She grumbled into the mike, giving her designation first, followed by the message's intended recipient, the ADP Information Management Center, nicked 'Raven's Roost' after a fairly antiquated military tradition. "Nothing's happening near the Park. No, wait...I've got a make on two teens in the bushes."

_"Doing what, o-five-six?"_ The response came back, clipped and precise, while Max chortled into his coffee.

"Uh...'fleecing sheep,' sir." She responded, sticking her head out the window as they passed. That elicited another round of guilty chuckles from Max, while the controller verbally floundered in the background.

_"Copy that, o-five-six. Continue patrol."_ The operator finally managed before signing off.

"That was cruel and unusual." Max said after he'd put his coffee back down, easing the car around a turn of the road.

"Oh, what, and coming onto that waitress while we were on duty was...what? Public relations?"

"Better'n beating helpless drunks senseless..." He retorted teasingly.

Alicia sniffed indignantly and gave her hair a defiant toss. "He deserved it. 'Is that tail fake, or are you just glad to see me?' Christ, where do you men come up with this shit?"

"Oh, c'mon..." Max snickered, holding off from laughing at her again. "The poor bastard was obviously taken in by your unearthly feminine wiles..."

"How'd you like to shut up and drive, Osaka?"

Max had a retort on the tip of his tongue, until a flicker of pseudomotion out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. "What in the..?" He peered out her window, squinting. His eyes snapped wide open an instant . "_Duck!_" He thundered, slamming the steering yoke back, decelerating, and throwing the car into a 90-degree spin. Alicia responded instantly, dropping down and tucking her head between her legs.

The rogue voomer would have taken her head - and her torso - clear off if she hadn't.

It careened into the back of the cruiser, screeching a thoroughly inhuman mechanical yowl as it went. It was huge, nearly three times the bulk of the average human, and one sweep of its arm took most of the passenger-side with it as it passed. Shards of metal and plastic bit into the unexposed flesh of Max's arm and face, drawing up tiny rivulets of blood.

Alicia was up and out of her seat before the voomer had managed to stop and turn around, vaulting easily over what was left of the door and facing off against the voomer while Max was just shrugging out of his seat-belt. He slapped a hand down to the portable radio attached to his waist. He didn't bother trying the scanner, as shrapnel had managed to destroy it. He pulled his sidearm, a heavy assault pistol capable of putting a hole through powered armor, clear of its holster, thumbed the radio on, and dropped down behind what was left of his cruiser, all in the space of a heartbeat.

He was yelling into the radio, calling for backup and leveling his pistol at the voomer when Alicia did something that thoroughly floored him: she charged the voomer. Max's jaw fell, and his aim wavered. The ADP operator was giving him a roger, but he didn't pay any attention as Alicia waded into the metal monstrosity, her eyes blazing a bright red and her talons flying.

And through it all, Max finally noticed something he hadn't before; under the overcoat she wore, she'd managed to hide a pair of forearm-sheathes and shin-guards capable of _somehow_ folding over her hands and feet. He watched, completely dumb-founded, as she fended off attack after attack, then sent the voomer reeling with an uppercut that would have killed a human. The voomer staggered backwards, a large dent in its jaw, electricity coursing and crackling over its skull. She followed through, hopping up and bringing her foreleg across its jaw with a near-deafening _crack_, followed by a small explosion.

The voomer staggered, and for the second time, something exploded where she hit it. Max stared, dumbfounded, as Alicia nailed it again and again with those gauntlets and shin-guards, and each time her armor found a target, there was a small explosion. Slowly, Max began to understand why. All along her gauntlets and armor, at strategic points placed specifically for maximum damage - and so she didn't blow her own leg off - miniature explosives had been embedded into or just under the surface, capable of being deployed whenever she needed to trigger it, apparently.

The voomer, smoking and bleeding nutrients, managed to finally get away from her. It swept a massive hand across her midsection, thick tendrils of something bordering between flesh and metal waving about like some demented cilia. Alicia went flying, her wings flailing uselessly as she careened head-long into a tree - and straight through it. She groaned and stirred, spitting out a mixture of saliva and blood as she did so.

The voomer shrieked another mechanical cry to the heavens, and thrust a single arm towards her. The cilia erupted from their forearm-sheathes, shooting towards Alicia, wriggling in a terrifyingly animated manner.

Max regained his senses fast enough to bring his pistol up and around. He snapped off three rounds into the creature's arm, knocking its aim off by precious inches. The cilia rolled and snapped through several trees and bushes, punching through yielding bark and leaves. They recoiled back to the voomer's arm, as the creature itself turned to face Max. Its mouth, twin mandibles clicking together hungrily, gaped at him, and a third ear-splitting shriek tore the night air.

Max swore, and fired again, putting a shell right between its eyes. He squeezed the trigger again, and again, and again, hitting it in the face, the mouth and the chest. It shrugged it off, and sprinted forward at him. Max managed to squeeze off another round before it was nearly on top of him.

He should've died, he would recall later. He should've been smear-marks on the soles of that's voomer's feet. And if it weren't for that huge, red..._thing_...that had swooped in and taken the voomer clear off its feet, he would've been just that.

Max and Alicia were both reduced to mere bystanders in the ensuing struggle. Three suits of powered armor - the red being larger, with wings, a tail, and a long, sheer helmet with horns sweeping back over its brow - took the voomer down.

The red tackled the voomer from the side, taking it clear off its feet. The voomer rallied, throwing Red off and coming to a rolling jump. Cilia shot out again, but Red simply rolled and avoided.

The yellow suit, laced with green and black trim, and obviously built with a woman's physique in mind, seemingly came out of nowhere. Her form was a bit less odd when compared to Red's, but visually much more attractive. She was incredibly curvaceous, and her acrobatics put Alicia's own to shame. Vibro-blades hummed and buzzed from where they were built into her forearms and shins. Her helmet, a standard piece with a tri-pronged communications suite that swept back from where her ears and forehead molded into an elegant crest above her nose, glinted in the moonlight as she struck. She was in and out before the voomer had time to react, landing on its back and gouging four deep furrows with retractable wrist-blades.

White, his armor trimmed with black, finally took the voomer down, via the pair of retractable laser-cannons mounted into its forearms. Where Yellow was graceful and elegant, White was bulky and massive. His helmet was simple, save for the crest that swept back from his brow and covered the sensitive joint at the back of his neck. When the voomer tried to take a swipe at him with one of those massive forearms, he simply caught it by the wrist, jammed one of those laser-cannons against the center of its chest, and blew a hole the size of a watermelon through its chest - and its core.

The voomer slumped, twitched in White's death-grip, and fell to the ground, dead. White dropped the limp forearm, metal joints creaking as it rolled its shoulders and neck in a fairly sedated victory dance. Yellow, standing off to the side, simply cocked her hips hautily, crossing her arms over her chest. Red stepped out of the foliage, brushing off dead leaves and branches from its bulk.

In those brief moments, Max got a good look at all three of them. White was definitely the tallest, but only because Red seemed to be hunched over in a perpetual slump. Yellow was dwarfed in comparison to them, but she carried herself with an air of imposed authority, in comparison to the others. It was long seconds, when the three were staring from Max to Alicia to themselves and back, before Max had the sense of mind to say, "You guys got permits for that armor?"

Red, White, and Yellow shared another look with each other, and Max would have sworn they were laughing at him. He'd never know, though. A spotlight snapped on from above, and a booming voice intruded on the scene. _"Alright, everyone just freeze where they are!"_

Max looked up, as did Alicia as she came to join him, both of them bruised and bleeding profusely. It took Max a minute to discern just what was casting the glare. An XE unit, he finally concluded. _Bloody wonderful..._ He thought sourly.

_"Goddamnit, I said freeze!"_ The XE pilot snapped. The officers' heads snapped around to look at the HARDsuits, only to see the jetpacks built into their armor flare to life. The asphalt blackened immediately, and they took to the air. _"No respect."_ The XE pilot snorted to himself, though he apparently forgot the loudspeaker was on, taking aim with its forearm laser.

"Damnit, Harvey!" Max waved furiously at the XE pilot. "Don't shoot 'em!"

Too late, the laser whined to life. A thin red line of light shot out, and clipped Red across the wingtip. The HARDsuit rolled with the impact, swooping up and around. It hovered for a moment before leveling its right hand at the XE. There was a thin wisp of smoke, and a thin, wafer-like disc shot out. The XE and its pilot tried to evade, but moved too slowly; the disc slapped with a metallic _clang_ against the armor's midsection. Currents of electricity surged out from the disc and enveloped the XE's exterior in its entirety. The armor writhed in the air for a moment, before it went abruptly rigid. The jetpack built in sputtered, before petering out completely.

It plummeted to the ground, crashing into the remains of Max's cruiser with enough force to destroy what little remained.

Max and Alicia rushed to the armor's side, only to find the pilot already stirring, having switched over to the emergency battery. The pilot twisted the dial on his chest, causing the armor's hermetic seal to pop and release. He yanked the helmet off and tossed it to the side, coughing.

Max smacked him cleanly upside the head. "Where the hell have _you_ been?!"

  
  


- 

Max sat slumped down in the chair, holding an ice-pack against his forehead while the yelling went on.

AD police Captain Rebecca Christmas was an angry woman. It was rumored that she took testosterone just to keep that mean-edge. Or that she had somehow perfected the perpetual PMS. Either way, the effect was to leave her an anal, angry shrew of a woman, who paid too damned much attention to rules and regs, and gave officers a reaming whenever she could get away with it. At least, that was Max's take.

AD police officer Alicia Wyvern was the new kid, but she had a mouth like a New Jersey lawyer. She was free, she was wild, and if she could get away with it, she'd pee all over the rules of jurisprudence.

Which meant one hell of a headache for Max.

Later, he'd reflect that the yelling break-down went something to the effect of,

Alicia: "What the -- ?! _Out of our jurisdiction?!_ Who the hell else is going to handle those HARDsuits! The straight NYPD?"

Bitchmas: "You're one to talk, _Sergeant_. As I recall, it was your family that's been tearing up the streets of this city since..."

A: "That has nothing to do with this!"

B: "Oh? Those 'vigilantes' are outside of our jurisdiction! And that's an order from the mayor, Sergeant!"

A: "What in the name of...the bastard's on Starling's payroll, and you know it!"

B: "Why in the hell would Starling want the ADP to lay off these...uh... (checking report) ...'Vigilantes'? No, wait, don't answer that. Let me just take a stab at this. Starling, Inc, is building another series of Sotai-class voomers, to wipe out humanity as a whole, or to use specifically against his competitors by making their models go rogue, right? And the Vigilantes are part of his plan, right? The Sotais set 'em up, and the Vigilantes knock 'em down, and then these punks are revealed to be part of Starling. And the ADP look like idiots, Starling looks blameless, and then we have another MegaCrash. Am I close, Sergeant?"

A: "Well...uh...that's actually better than what I had, but YES, damnit! And since when does the ADP need help looking like a bunch of idiots?!"

B: "Get the hell out of my office! And take that lazy sack of waste sitting in my chair with you!"

- 

The Private Journal of Max Osaka best describes the following:

"I had decided, within five seconds of stepping inside Alicia Wyvern's 'home', that this had been a bad idea.

"Oh, sure, it had seemed a good enough idea at the time; she invited me home to eat with her family - after we'd filed all that damned paperwork; I swear to God, if I have to vouch for one more bullet I put in a rogue's festering corpse... - and I'd, of course, said yes. Free food equals happy Max, right?

_"Wrong._

"What my bonehead self had failed to register previously was, of course, since Alicia was a gargoyle, it might reason that her parents and 'Clan' were gargoyles as well. Sweet Jesus on rollerskates...it had been a bad day already, though that really doesn't need to be said. Two voomers, three dead civvies, two drunk cops, one _dead_ cop, and a new partner. Oh, yeah, and my new partner has wings, a tail, and a triple-Z cup-size. And if she wears a bra, I ain't seen the outline yet. And trust me, folks; my eyes have spent enough time in her chest, even in the five hours I was on-duty before they sent us home.

"She lived in the Aerie tower. The tallest building in New York. The tallest. Not the second tallest, the freakin' tallest. With a friggin' _castle on top!_ And the castle was where she lived! I pity the poor bastard who has to court this girl. This is just insane. And when I say insane, I say absolutely nuts. Xanatos imported the castle from Scotland, and now we've got gargoyles living there?! Where's the Count, man? We'll have a little...ah, fuck you. It was a funny joke.

"Needless to say, I needed a drink. A stiff drink. The kind of drink that leaves you drunk the next morning.

"Of course, the way Alicia's mother, Delilah Avalon, was glowering at me, I have no doubt that, had I asked for anything other than water, I would never be able to father children. And the jury's still out on that one. This woman hates me. Delilah Avalon is the type of woman that makes grown men weep simply by staring at them. This lady would make that SWAT-asshole Darla cry uncle.

"Yeah. The same guy who told the Commissioner to bend over. _That_ Darla.

"I digress. Also in attendance were David, Fox, Alexander, Dawn, and Christine Xanatos - the richest people in the whole of New-stinkin'-York. And there I am, in a black t-shirt, a pair of gnatty jeans, and a black leather jacket. Appropriate for getting laid, perhaps. But not the Xanatos family. _The_ Xanatos family! The people who finance the ADP, for fuck's sake!

"David and Fox Xanatos were...well. Whatever it is they're doing to maintain those girlish figures of theirs, they're doing a damned good job of it. And can you say upper-class? I kept sitting in my chair, fidgeting nervously, glaring at Alicia the whole time, going _Why didn't you warn me?!_

"This must be how she's getting back at me for that 'just how flexible is that tail, anyway?' crack. Why me, God?

"Where David and Fox Xanatos were regal, refined, even courtly, Alexander and Dawn were...well. If those two hadn't been getting a little PT in before dinner, I'm the fucking Pope. But they were dignified; hell, they made me feel right at home. Treated me like one of the family. Actually, the whole Xanatos family did, but, damnit, Christine just made me nervous. The pupilless, pitch-black eyes, the sheer fingernails capable of shredding steel, and the pointed ears...and that....ethereal beauty about her...

"It was all I could do not to stare at her all dinner long.

"Angela Avalon...what. The. Fuck. Where the Xanatos' are graceful and ethereal, this broad looks pissed twenty-four hours a day. And gargoyles are stone for half that, so you get the idea. Alicia told me about how her Clan had gone through some major separation angst in the '30s, and how Angela's husband, Brooklyn Wyvern, had gone on a self-improvement kick back in '37, and left Angela high-and-dry. So, naturally, she's pissed. I get that. I respect that in a woman. Scares the hell outta me, but I respect it.

"And her son, Drake Avalon (not Wyvern; _Avalon_, after his _mother_) is a ten year old squirt. I had to sit next to this annoying little shit, and he kept kicking me through the whole _goddamn meal_. What was I going to say? "Excuse me, Angela, would you tell your son to stop kicking me?" And risk her ripping my nuts off? Are you insane?!

"But the rest of them were alright, I guess. Commissioner Maza was there. I'd always heard rumors that she had been closely involved with the gargoyles back in 1997, so I guess this just makes sense that she's part of their Clan. She's a really fun gal when you get to know her, really. She made a crack on Officer Darla's prowess in the sack, which prompted a lot of choked food at my end of the people, and endless mirth on everyone else's behalf.

"Derek and Maggie Maza. I thought gargoyles, cyborgs, and that mutt, Bronx, was bad, but these guys take the cake. They're cats. Yeah. Cats. Well, hybrids, but, damnit, with _cat_ thrown in. And they can throw lightning. And so can their grandkids. Oh, the parents were cool; they had a little fun at my expense, but then, even that stiff, Owen Burnett, had that. Their kids were fine. Their grandkids are why I'm never having children. And that's all I'm telling you.

"But something I noticed, though. The Clan's split in the '30s came up once during dinner, and when someone mentioned the name 'Goliath,' the Commissioner's face absolutely fell. And then, when it came time to do the toast, the elder Xanatos said, "To all those no longer with us, but forever in our memories," and the breakdown went like this: Fox said sommat about a dude named 'Halcyon,' Elisa had 'Goliath,' Delilah, 'Broadway,'(Alicia actually came close to tears here) Angela 'that no good son-of-a-bitch, Brooklyn,' the cat-people did a thing to a dude named 'Claw,' and then it got down to me.

"Picture it, please. Here's everyone, all swanked up...well, okay, only the Xanatos' - the others were wearing these smelly little loincloths that smelled like a Bronx bordello in a sweltering 95-degree summer heat - with their glasses in the air. And they're all staring right. At. Me. Expecting me to bare my soul for them for three friggin' seconds. So, I just raise my glass, grab my proverbial ankles, kiss my ass good-bye, and say, "Melissa Shields."

"I'd like to thank the Academy. I hope you're laughin' it up there with God, Melly.

"...I know I'm not."

-

Max's Journal continues:

"Well, we finished dinner. The appetizer looked like Owen had fished it out of the sewers, the salad looked all...green and leafy, the chicken looked like someone had wiped their ass with it, and the dessert was fried ice cream. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't care how good it tastes (and taste good it did), you do not fry the ice cream. It just...ain't American!

"Of course, neither is blood pie, but that tastes like ass, so let's move on...

"Well, the Commish turned in early, so did the Maza couple. The kids got tucked in bed, and the atmosphere just abruptly changed. I don't know what it was, but it was. I watched in awe as Fox put back two steins of booze in a gulp - _a_ gulp; singular - and come back for more. Delilah and Angela eased up a bit, and we all got into a huge game of poker (I think I owe Xanatos my firstborn now, but don't quote me on that...) that devolved into strip poker. Welp, Alex and Dawn didn't last long, and were soon necking on the couch while I drunkenly fumbled my cards and lost more money. Alicia and her mom, Delilah, got into a running series of jokes about their late father/husband, which Fox promptly got in on while Xanatos and I wisely kept our traps shut. Angela, by this time, was damned near naked. Of course, so was I, but it's all in the Clan, right?

"Oh, yeah, apparently I'm Clan now. Kinky, I think, but absolutely useless next time a voomer comes at me tooth-and-claw. But I digress.

"So, anyways...we got to talking, and after a great number of beers and some hardcore prying, Xanatos finally spilled the Clan's split to me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen some tragedies in my day. I'd like to consider myself somewhat immune to them by now.

"But this goes beyond tragedy. This is just sadistic."

-

Max's Journal continues:

"To truly understand the depth of this tragedy, we've got to go back to the beginning. Somewhere around 996 AD. According to Xanatos, this was a time when a bunch of bad hombres were running around; aside from humanity's normal riff-raff, you had all manner of baddies running around. Goblins, orcs, ogres, giants, fey, elves, even the occasional rogue gargoyle.

"Clan Wyvern was, by comparison to some of the others across the landscape, the largest group around. England had been purging and persecuting the gargoyles for centuries, and the Scots - where Castle Wyvern stood - were beginning to, themselves. Gargoyles are helpless during the day, as just about any shmuck worth his salt knows, so they formed a pact with the humans of Wyvern. It was a type of symbiosis, really. The humans kept the gargoyles alive during the day, and the gargoyles did their nocturnal protection thing.

"Just thinking about it makes me wish we had the same deal.

"Anyways. Goliath, his mate, Angel (sic, Demona, but that came much later; different story altogether) and his counsel, a grizzled old warrior called Elder (sic, Hudson, but that's another story) led them in and out of battle. They fought Vikings, orc hordes, demons, even something that Xanatos called the 'Devil's Horde.' (And won, to boot.)

"In the end, though, it was the one human they trusted above all who killed them: the Captain of the Guard. He and Angel formed a pact with a group of marauding Vikings led by a man named Hakon. The plan was that the Vikings would sack the Castle at the break of dawn, but that they would leave the gargoyles in peace.

"Hakon didn't trust the Captain, so he smashed the gargoyles anyway, while the Captain was forced to watch, helpless. Angel survived by hiding just before dawn.

"Goliath, Elder, and three of the Clan's teenagers - who'd come to be known as Brooklyn, Broadway, and Lexington - as well as the doggoyle Bronx, all survived by sheer luck of the draw. As did the Clan's eggs, stored away in something called a rookery.

"The Clan avenges itself on the Vikings, but the Castle's resident magician, after managing to somehow free himself, blames the Trio, Hudson, and Bronx (Goliath was off doing the dashing thing) for Princess Catherine's - the castle's keeper - death. He casts a spell, a miracle occurs here, and the gargoyles are stuck in stone 'until the castle rises above the clouds.'

"Tragic point: while the Magus was going nuts, Goliath was saving the Princess.

"Goliath couldn't rear the eggs by himself, so Catherine and the Magus take responsibility for them, as does a young squirt by the name of Tom. Magus sticks Goliath in stone, and the eggs, Catherine, Magus, Tom, and Tom's mom, go off on their own adventures. They end up on Avalon, a mystical isle of some sort, where time passes slower than in the real world.

"One-thousand years breezes by. Enter David Xanatos. He's a young entrepreneur, and something of a blood-sucker. He buys the castle and, lo and behold, moves it atop the freakin' Aerie tower. Gargoyles wake up, and hijinks ensue.

"A _lot_ of stuff happens between that night, and this. Far too much to put down here. I'll just buy a copy of the Xanatos Family memoirs, when they write 'em up. And y'know what? I think everyone's going to buy it. Every single word. We've just seen too much in the past forty years. The discovery of Atlantis and that _huge_ fish, Leviathan. The creatures in Germany's dark forest. Hell, even voomers, and the Sotai phenomenon.

"Anyways, the only reason I remember any of this is because Xanatos had been recording it, and he gave me a copy. How'd he know?

"Fah. Skip to 2031. Brooklyn's managed to woo and marry Angela, and they've got a squirt. Broadway hooked up with a girly off of Avalon - Delilah - and they begat Alicia. Lexington hooked up with a XanaCorps employee, name of Sarah Conway, but they never had kids before she died in a car accident, sometime around 2030. Hudson croaked sometime around 2025, courtesy of some hot-rodder with an Uzi. Bronx hooked up with a 'Boudicca,' whatever that is. They had puppies. One of them tried to pee on me.

"Alright, back on topic. NYC, 2031: voomers were going mainstream, and the gargoyles had mucho bad vibes. Goliath in particular. He and Elisa had been pretty hot and heavy since the late 1990s, and would have had children, had a shotgun shell to her stomach in a SWAT-raid not banished her to a desk and...well. Not my story to tell.

"Wyvern Clan handled the first rogues pretty well, working with the NYPD to get rid of them. One night, though, three sewer reclamation voomers went berserk in downtown Manhattan, right near the Aerie tower. The gargoyles - Bronx, Boudicca, a heavily cyberwebbed-Lexington, Brooklyn, Broadway, Angela, Delilah, Alicia, and, of course, Goliath - responded. They took the voomers down, eventually. But not before half of Broadway's head had been ripped off, and Goliath's entire ribcage shattered, piercing his lungs and heart.

"Xanatos told me, after throwing back two shots of vodka in rapid succession, that there'd been nothing to do for them. I don't know who he was try to convince; me, or him. At any rate, there's more to that story. But considering the rest of the material, I don't think I want to know what it was.

"The Clan didn't shatter until 2032. Brooklyn grew cold and distant from the Clan he now had to lead. Angela became hard and bitter; her father was dead, and her husband was shunning her. Her son was also five gargoyle-years (ten in human) old, and you know how that goes. Lexington plugged himself into the cyber-world, and stayed there for days on end. Alicia and Delilah tried to support each other, and all the rest, but, despite all their best efforts, the schism occurred.

"Brooklyn left one night, telling Angela in private that he needed to go 'find himself.' She told him to...you get the idea. Lexington didn't give anyone any preamble. He simply left his web-ID with Owen, and disappeared into the city.

"Hudson, Goliath, Broadway, Brooklyn, and Lexington. The dog's the only original one left.

"The Clan never went patrolling again. The ADP was formed, to handle rogue voomers, gang-related activities, and to stem the ever-worsening 'competition' between the super-conglomerates.

"Alicia joined the ADP of her own volition. Her mother hated the idea, and kept insisting that she find herself a good mate on Avalon. Keeps insisting, actually. Angela doesn't care about anyone, save for her son. That includes herself.

"In the past few years, there's been a lot of talk of the Clan moving to Avalon and writing off humanity completely. I can't say I blame them.

"I don't know. It's getting late, and I've got to be up in five hours for my next shift. I'll write more later. Maybe it'll be a slow day, or something.

"... ... ...

"Hee hee. I crack me up."

-

Richard Starling stood at his office window, hands clasped behind his back, as he surveyed the night-side city-scape laid out below him. The Nightstone Unlimited tower, the Aerie building, the Athens Incorporated building, even the PsiNet Corporation HQ - all were visible here, at the top of the world. Starling flexed his gloved hands, black leather creaking tightly. He stood tall, shoulders back, back straight up as a decade of military service had drilled into him. He looked amazingly good for a man pushing seventy. Good facial complexion, good skin, a head full of thick, black hair. Piercing brown eyes capable of sizing up anything on two legs, and quite a few things three or more, fixed the Aerie tower's outlines in their gaze.

"I can't begin to calculate how long I've hated that tower." He said, jaw tightening reflexively. "Or Xanatos himself."

His secretary and aide-de-camp stood next to him, her long, thin fingers crossed over her chest, her hips cocked haughtily. "Ever since he sent your unit against that renegade creature of his, wasn't it?" Blood-red lips split into a slightly sadistic grin, white synthetic skin stretching just slightly. Shock-white hair, shot through with black stripings, cascaded down her back, stopping at her lower back. A single thin, petulant braid hung off to the left side, dyed at least twelve different colors.

Starling grunted. "Yes. Back in the nineties, devil take the man."

"Soon enough. The Sidhe still refuses to be of any help, however."

"I assume someone took it upon themselves to torture her?" He asked unnecessarily.

The smile danced on her lips again. "She's a challenge, for sure. Resilient little thing. This might take me awhile."

He glanced over at her, arching a single eyebrow at the liberated voomer next to him. "Indeed. Well, take your time. Those idiots in Research are still trying to figure out the basic systems parameters needed for what we're after."

"Still?" She scowled, shaking her head. "We gave them all of Stingray's notes. All that survived both the quake and crash, at any rate. What more do they need?"

"Have a little patience, Lucinda." Starling chided, a slight grin creasing his features. "Now, what about those new HARDsuits..?"

The scowl deepened, and she hunched her head in a stance that closely resembled a pout. "The ones that dropped my voomer, and saved that winged rat? We've got nothing on them. They're definitely based on the suits used by the Knight Sabers, back during the crash. They redesigned and modified them for use on men, and I suppose it wouldn't be much of a stretch to fit them for gargoyle use."

"Who has the specifications on those original HARDsuits?"

"No one. That bitch, Stingray, sold the rights to XanaCorps only. Since then, all XanaCorps has made is those ridiculous XE models."

Starling smiled, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "Oh, I doubt that."

Lucinda arched a brow, turning to look up at him.

"I doubt that very much."

Lucinda looked about ready to say something else, when something seemed to distract her momentarily. Moments passed. Then she swore under her breath, turning to look at the doors. "The kids are making a fuss again." She held a hand up before he could turn. "I'll handle it. Just enjoy the view."

-

"Wakie wakie there, partner."

Max groaned, opening a single eye to give Alicia the most aggravated glare he could manage on three hours' sleep. "It's not time for school yet, mommy."

"Yes, but if you don't hurry, you're going to miss the bus." She sing-songed to him, sitting down on the side of the desk and looking at him like a five-year-old would beg her father to get her the latest toy or gadget.

Max managed to straighten his neck out and fix her with a tired stare, wiping sleep from his eyes as he did so. "Are we having the same conversation?"

"Probably not. But I thought you might find this interesting."She tossed a folder into his lap, and began nursing the cup of coffee in her hands.

Max groaned and swung his feet off his desk, scooping up the folder and leafing through it drowsily. After a few minutes of silent browsing, he tossed it back to the desk with a disgusted snort. "It's a list of serial numbers with Starling ID tags. So what?"

Alicia shrugged, toe-talons drumming on the ground in a sign of slight agitation. "All I know, I wake up earlier tonight, check my ID, and I've got a message." She flicked her thumb at the folder. "That's it."

"Interesting." Max lied, reaching for the cup of coffee that had been cooling on his desk for the past twenty minutes. "And who sent this message?"

"Some creep at [Sotai_Phenomenon@whizz.labs.Japan.][2]"

Max choked on his coffee, turning his head to the side to spit out what was in his mouth into the trash can at the side. He coughed and gagged for a solid minute, while Alicia simply shrugged it off and sipped at her own coffee. "Interested yet?"

-

_"Daddy...it hurts..!"_

_ "Shush...it's all right, darling...just a little longer, and it won't hurt anymore...it's all right, you'll see..."_

_ Self ran it through in its mind over and over again, even as yet another of these disgusting Others moved over it. Oh, Self made all the usual noises - the grunting, the groaning, the panting - for the benefit of the Other. That's what Self was programmed for, after all._

_ "Daddy, it's really hurting...it feels like...it's on fire..."_

_ "Quiet! You'll sit there and you'll like it!"_

_ Self winced as the Other's voice rang in its head again. The Other over Self didn't notice, as he was engaged in spraying Self with that foul-smelling liquid the Others always had._

_ "Was it good for you?" The Other sneered down at Self._

_ "Was it good for you, sweety?"_

_-_

"'Rage, rage! against the dying of the light.'" Lexington quoted quietly, smirking to himself as he watched the vid-program - something about a boy and his dog. "The British were a quaint people in their day, weren't they?"

"Aside from the wars and the destruction and the persecution, sure, whatever." Kenji replied humorlessly. "Look, Lex, I know you miss your Clan and everything..."

Lexington turned his head slightly, a vaguely amused expression on his face. "Do you, now? And how did you come to this conclusion?"

"The _point_ is," Kenji growled, stampeding over his sarcasm, "that we could've used a third party slicer to get that information to the ADP. And certainly not to...well, maybe through the Mayor's office or something..." Kenji finished off, the last sentence coming out as a grumble.

"Certainly not to my niece, you mean?" Lexington turned back to his screen, and continued watching the TV, flicking a kernel of popcorn into the air and catching it via his mouth. "Honestly, Kenji, for one of the best deckers in the business, you're one transparent flip."

Kenji's left brow twitched. "Whatever you say, y'winged rat. The point is, it's dangerous for us to expose ourselves this early. I mean, what if Xanatos is working with -"

Lex cut him off with a sharp glare. "The next word out of your mouth better not be 'Starling.'"

Kenji met the glare evenly. "What if it is."

"I know my godson, Ken. Better than I know the hard-deck wired into my brain. Alexander Renard Xanatos wouldn't deal with that jackal; not in a million years."

"Lex..."

"_Jar'e!_" The green gargoyle snapped, his grip on the popcorn bowl tightening, 'til a hairline fracture appeared along its rim. "Leave it." He repeated, in English, darkly, in a low voice. "Tell me about our newest employer..."

Kenji's mental frown deepened. He'd have to plug the leak himself, it seemed. Well, that was fine. He'd covered for Lex's mental slips before; every time Lex had put his interests before the business, in fact. And as he began telling Lex about their latest employer, a small-time voomer-manufacturer who wanted a bit of information from Starling HQ, his mind was made up.

Yes, he'd have to handle this himself...

-

"What in the - _again?!_" Kevin O'Leary grumbled blearily, stabbing the sweat away from his eyes. "We just...I mean...for the love of Christ!"

Their enigmatic leader simply arched a brow at him. "If there's a problem with it..." He growled, crossing his arms over his chest and drumming armored fingers on his forearm plating. "...you can always quit."

"No I can't, and you bloody well know it!" Kevin snapped, glowering at his employer. "That was one of the rules, remember?! Number eleven, if I remember correctly! Punishable by death and all that!"

"True." The boss growled. "And I'm paying you and Sra. Asuncion quite a hefty sum of money for services rendered. You've had five and a half hours to sleep, Mr. O'Leary. And frankly, the fabled Irish temper has never much impressed me as being much more than hot air. Now, if you please, get suited up."

The boss's visor hissed shut, obscuring those alien features again. "We'll meet you in the pit."

-

"Well?" Sra. Christiana Asuncion planted her hands on her armor-clad hips, cocking them smartly. "Took you long enough." She quipped, mouthing off in that vaguely-annoying Latin accent she had.

Kevin just shot her a withering glare that brooked no argument. She simply huffed indignantly and looked over to their red-clad leader. His gaze tracked along hers until both were looking to him, leaning up against the wall as he was.

"It's another sexaroid." He grunted finally. "Core's in the chest. According to FUCKUP, the possibility of a level-two Sotai occurrence is low. But given time, it could get worse."

"Like always." Christiana added. "So! When do we go?"

Kevin looked over at her, frowning inside his helmet. "Kiss-ass." He grumbled to himself.

"Grouch."

A reply was on his lips when their boss stood up - straight for once, Kevin noted - and cut them off. "Enough. I'm paying you to fight voomers, not each other." He turned and started towards the door. "Let's go."

-

**_"Get off me!"_**_ Self shrieked, pushing against the Other on top of it - no. On top of **her.**_

-

_"All units in the vicinity of Bronx ward 1-6-1, we've got a mad voomer tearing up the neighborhood. Reports suggest that this voomer is in its first-stage transition only. I say again, all units near..."_

Max had already thrown his replacement cruiser - the voomer had destroyed his precious fuzzy dice! - into a one-eighty turn and floored the accelerator, sending the police car off like a shot down the street. Alicia's coffee went flying unwillingly from her hands, and flew out the open window. She screeched in protest as she was thrown against the car door, then slammed back into the seat's restraints. "Where'd you learn to drive, Osaka?! I've been on the beat with you a week, and you drive like this every night! What, did you take the special safety-last course they forgot to tell me about?!"

He just shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. "You sound like a nagging wife."

Alicia's eyes went wide, and her jaw went completely slack. "Nuh...nuh...nag...you miserable, ungrateful little..! Grr!" She threw her hands up in disgust. "_Men!_"

"Women. Rhymes with swimmin'." He answered lamely, throwing the cruiser into a ninety-degree turn that wouldn't have been possible a half-century ago.

Alicia's fist clenched and unclenched several times, those strange, ultra-tech gauntlets of hers creaking slightly as she did so. Max didn't see her do it, but apparently she'd already tapped the gauntlets' starter-switch, because they were now humming with barely-restrained power. It would take another tap of that same starter-switch before the gauntlets would arm themselves, he knew, and then most anything that came in touch with them would meet with a very pyrotechnic demise.

He'd have to see about getting her a gun. Or a tank. Whichever.

-

The ADP and the Vigilantes arrived on the scene at approximately the same time. The Vs were actually first, but only by a few seconds.

Christiana went in first, shrieking out a _ki-yi_ war-cry that hurt Kevin's ears. Two seconds later, the voomer had thrown her face-first into the nearest building. Boss hung back while Kevin lumbered towards the comparatively tiny voomer, raising a massive fist and driving it down towards her like a sledgehammer. The voomer dodged, and had him eating pavement with a roundhouse. While he lay there, completely dazed and wondering just what the hell had happened, the voomer - bare-ass naked - leapt towards the nearest pedestrian, fingers clawing to rip his head clear off.

The voomer never got there, as a wall of flesh with wings slammed into her from the side. The two figures slammed into the ground with a loud crunch of concrete. They rolled, grappling, before the newcomer got her footing under her well enough to toss the voomer away.

The two combatants came up into crouches, glaring at each other over the ten feet of asphalt that separated them, while a crowd of onlookers warily gathered at the fringes.

Alicia bared her fangs, clenching her fists tightly. Max ran up behind her, leveling an assault rifle at the completely naked voomer. It was then that Christiana waded out of the rubble of the building she'd flown through, launching herself towards the voomer, wristblades humming. Kevin staggered to his feet finally, clutching his helmeted head. The voomer caught Christiana by the wrists and redirected her arc and angle of ascent, throwing her headlong into Kevin.

When asked later, Max was unable to explain why he yelled at the voomer. All he knew was that something - karma, fate, or just some randomly misfired neuron - made him yell, "Freeze!"

And, when asked, he wouldn't be able to explain why it did.

The voomer's head snapped around to face him, long ivory hair swirling around an olive complexion, and a face that betrayed sheer, unrelenting anger. It stood, drawing up into a defiant stance, glowering straight at Max. "Why..?" It breathed quietly, saline tears staining its cheeks.

Silence reigned. Christiana shoved up onto her hands, gaping openly at the rogue voomer who had, against all logical reasoning, responded coherently to a verbal command. Kevin, Alicia, and Max weren't any better off.

The voomer didn't speak again. It simply stood underneath a lamp post, blood beginning to dry between its fingers and over its breasts and midriff. No one moved, no one spoke, no one dared even to breathe.

-

_Interesting..._ Red thought to himself, arms crossed over his chest from where he watched, ducked in the alley. _So the rogues have begun to pass beyond unconscious defense to conscious thought._ He smiled despite himself. Much as he hated rogues, and begrudged them every moment of existence they had, he was sorely tempted to let this particular one alone, just to see how the ADP would handle it. He was even on the verge of giving the order to Christiana and Kevin when the whole thing once again went to hell.

A pair of XE units with ADP markings landed with a heavy crunch of metals and asphalt in the street. Forearm lasers sprung from their sheathes, and before anyone could shout a warning, they fired. The voomer was almost taken unawares, and thus barely avoided being cut in half. Long locks of hair were incinerated as it danced away, flipping straight backwards. 

"No!" Max yelled, waving frantically at the armored units who couldn't notice him. "Don't shoot her!"

The remarks fell on deaf ears as Christiana and Kevin regained their wits and entered the fray. Blasts of laser-fire flew, blades capable of shredding bone and sinew leapt from sheathes, and martial artists plied their trade.

When it was done, both of the XE units were down, pilots unconscious or dead. The voomer was down, its core broken in Christiana's fists, and its hands...

...clutching Christiana's own, as if sharing its last moments with her.

-

Elektra Dracon steepled her hands before her face as she listened to the report her top aide, a man who went by the sic 'Scratch,' gave her. As he concluded, a cool smile split her lips. "Let me get this straight, Scratch. Big red thinks...what? That the rogues aren't going rogue at all? That they're evolving?"

Scratch shrugged nonchalantly, crossing his left leg over his right and doing a half-sprawl across the couch. "That about sums it up, boss-ma'am. Ask me, I think he's finally slipped off over the deep end."

"Except I didn't ask." She leaned back, crossing her own legs and draping her hands gracefully in her lap. "This changes nothing. The corporate sector might want this information for themselves, but I see no reason to give it to them at this point. As for the ADP...well, they'll manage to bungle it up, like they always do."

Scratch arched an eyebrow from behind the wireframe glasses he wore. "You still want to keep our shipment dates for the new models, even knowing this?"

The smile went from cool to sinister with no forewarning whatsoever. "Especially knowing this. You forget why slavers are still able to ply their trade, why prostitution is still so popular."

The brow went just a bit further skyward.

"People like domination, my friend. Some like doing it, some like taking it. Add this into the mix, and we may have a few new clients in the next few months."

Scratch looked at her skeptically. He didn't particularly buy into her hunch on this one, but, then again, he'd been working for the Dracon family since she'd been a child, and he'd yet to see one of these hunches fail to play out.

"Smile, Ska." She said, voice oozing with a false sweetness. "We're about to get filthy stinking rich." She snickered. "As if we weren't already."

-

The waiting room in Polk Hospital's emergency ward was, Max thought sourly, typical of the sheer grit of today's society. Cracked tile flooring, a pair of vending machines that had fenced-off chassis (save for the money slots), plastic chairs that reeked of urine and disinfectant, and the usual motley assortment of the inner city's less desirables. Gang-bangers, beggars, drug addicts, and the occasional lower-middle class family huddling together for warmth while a loved one lived or died on the table. Even a juicer - men and women (typically mercenaries) who took an assortment of drugs designed to increase their natural attributes, often-times in lethal doses, leaving them dead, brain-damaged, or insane - or two.

Alicia was outside, communing with a pair of paramedics who'd brought the XE pilots in. Max sat in a corner of the waiting room, eyes closed, head back against the wall as he prayed over and over again in his mind for the two XE pilots, in critical condition, to pull through. Beside him sat police officer Fiona Halkins, an off-duty friend of the aforementioned pilots, nursing a cup of coffee in trembling hands.

Hours passed. Hours that Max should have spent on patrol, doing...whatever it was that his superiors decided the ADP should be doing that week. But he didn't care. Something made him stay, overriding his normal cop's instincts to beat the streets. He hadn't had a chance to sit down and talk with Alicia yet, and he wanted to talk with those two XE pilots...if they survived. He read magazines, he drank coffee, he talked briefly with officer Halkins, but mostly, he ran it over and over again in his mind.

It had asked him 'Why..?' His cursory examinations had turned up a few facts. The rogue was a Sexaroid, a Pentex 55-S that was 'owned' by one of the myriad of gangs running operations in the Bronx these days. The core, smashed as it was, was absolutely useless as a piece of forensic evidence.

'Why..?' _Why what?_ Max groused, sinking deeper into his chair. Why should it freeze, why had people treated it the way they did, why did it exist? Why had it been crying? Why was it even possible for it to cry? Why did it lash out the way it did? Why did any of the voomers lash out the way they did?

Max snorted in macabre amusement. _'Why,' it seems, is a far more complex question than I'd thought._

Beside him, Halkins stirred. She stood, and so did Max, as a surgeon, scrubs rather soaked with sweat, stepped towards them, brushing tousled black hair from his face. He nodded once to both of them, his face a mask of grim resignation. "Officer, Detective..." He said shakily, raking a hand through his hair again. "I'm sorry, but...neither man survived the operation."

Max heard Halkins let out a little gasp, and she seemed to reel backwards into him. He rested a hand on her shoulder, even as he closed his own eyes. Dimly, he realized that the doctor was still talking. He had to force himself to listen, concentrating on the man's words, straining as if they were coming from somewhere far, far away.

"...complications during the surgery, and as soon as the hemorrhaging began, it..." He shook his head, dropping his gaze to the ground and stabbing his hand through his hair again. "I'm sorry, officers. I'll...see your superiors get the full reports..."

"Thank you, doctor." Max said dimly, barely aware he'd said anything at all. Two more officers, dead... "I know you did your best."

He felt like a liar.

-

After they'd taken Halkins home, Max and Alicia had found an all night diner and stopped for a cup of coffee and a talk. Max had to stop and marvel at the simple fact that gargoyles, like Alicia, had simply become just another group of celebrities to the people of New York. The diner's staff had seated them without incident, the waiters and waitresses were fairly pleasant (or, at least, as pleasant as New York city service staff could be) and the manager had even come out and welcomed them (particularly Alicia) to the place, and offered to get them whatever they wanted. Alicia had graciously managed to fend the man off, despite the tell-tale bunched muscles in her arms and shoulders that told Max she'd wanted to put the man's head through the wall.

So, they got their coffee, found a pair of empty stools, and proceeded to stare into their coffee for a good ten minutes before saying anything. It was Alicia who finally broke the silence. "You heard her."

Max nodded, rolling his cup around in his hands slowly. "Yeah. I heard it."

"Was she a libby gone rogue, then?" Alicia asked, using the slang 'liberated.'

"I've never heard of it happening. Only the 1st- and 2nd-generation voomers. The libbies..." He shook his head. "No. Just the stupid ones."

Alicia scowled into her coffee as she sipped some of it down. "I thought the two-gees were illegal nowadays..?"

"Oh, they're plenty illegal. Unless they're designed for a specific purpose."

Alicia's brow knit, and she looked over at him, her face twisting into a mask of confusion. Max just smirked at her. "Didn't you ever read the text of the Sentience Rights Act..? They outlawed anything smarter than a gerbil or a rat or some other furry pest. It's null, and no one pays any attention to it. What, you think the nation's leaders are going to turn down cheap labor? They pump your gas, they clean your streets, and they're even polite about it. And the best part about it..." Max scowled, throwing back his coffee in a single gulp. "The best part for those bastards..." His voice fell several notches, so only she could hear him. "...when they go rogue, they always take someone out with them. It's population control, without looking like communist China all over again."

She stared at him for long moments, her jaw hanging just slightly open, exposing two rows of sharpened ivory fangs. "And...they get away with it..?"

Max turned his head just slightly to look at her, a cynical smirk dancing across his face. "You tell me."

Alicia's mouth snapped shut, and the muscles at the corners of her jaw bunched tightly. "Those arrogant sons of bit -"

He cut her off with a wave of his hand. "That's not why we're here, Al." 

She looked ready to object, a dangerous anger smoldering just behind her eyes, but she backed off. She turned back to her coffee as a passing waitress warmed up their cups. Max thanked her.

"If she wasn't a libby, then what was she?"

Max grunted in disgust. "Thanks to those armored punks, we'll never know."

"The core?"

"The core. If we could've taken it intact, we might have known the make, the model, and the serial...num...ber." He said, trailing off towards the end as his eyes went wide.

Alicia smirked slightly. "Forgot about the list, didn't you?"

Max turned to look at her, his face twisting in shock. "You mean you didn't?"

Alicia shrugged. "I'm the one carrying it, remember? I can't believe you forgot about the list."

"Well...gosh, kind of a lot's happened since then." He deadpanned humorlessly. "Has Ching tracked the owners of all those voomers down yet..?"

She shook her head, swirling her coffee idly with a talon. "Not since an hour ago, when I last called in. He said he wouldn't have it done until sometime tomorrow. There were a hell of a lot of numbers on that list, y'know."

"Damn." Max growled.

"Something interesting he told me, though. They were all Starling Industries make and model." Max arched a brow in her direction, eliciting a shrug. "Surprised me, too. You thinking someone's trying to discredit or frame Starling?"

"If that were true, why did they send the list to you?"

Alicia's brow knit in quiet confusion. "I don't follow you."

"Think about it, Al." Max grouched, choking back another cup of coffee. "You're obviously either not a very important gargoyle, or someone's telling the press to take a hike, so it's not common knowledge that you're a member of the 3rd yet."

She regarded him with an openly shocked stare. "Wha...how did..?"

"Oh, that's right. Sometimes people forget I'm a detective." Max snorted. "Give me a little credit, will you? Like it or not, the gargoyle species has been getting wide amounts of press ever since the late nineties. You're practically celebrities now. And, for the first time ever, one of them joins the police force. Not just the police force, but the NYPD's Advanced division. So, why isn't the press all over this one..?"

It was a long moment before Alicia completed the thought, quietly, for him. "...because they don't know about it yet." She sighed, and sipped her coffee gingerly. "Now I remember why Elisa chose you."

Max's nose wrinkled in confusion. "The Commissioner chose me..?"

She barreled over him, ignoring his confusion. "I asked them to keep this on the down-low, Max. At least, for as long as they could. The last thing either one of us needs is to have a group of reporters in our faces everywhere we go, getting in the way whenever we try to do our jobs." She sighed, brushing her hair back over her ear. "I probably should have told you, spared you just one more mystery."

"Yeah, that would've been nice." He grumbled. "But at least it got me thinking; you get a list of serial numbers from an anonymous source that implies these particular voomers are going to go rogue. Is it a setup? Possible, but very unlikely. Why? Because if someone wanted to frame Starling for something, they'd have leaked it to the press, along with a connection back to Starling, implying that the organization knew in advance what was going to happen."

"Which we can already imply that they did, because they're the only ones capable of drawing up a list of faulty cores this large."

Max regarded her with an open look of surprise. "What about one of their competitors, like XanaCorps..?"

Alicia smiled, showing her fangs again. "I've worked with the Xanatos family long enough to learn something about big business. You can have all the spies you want in a particular company or business, but it's damn near impossible to get them inside something as big as Starling. And to find out which core series' are faulty would take some top-level investigations." She shook her head, grinning like a cat. "No. This list was compiled by someone way up in Starling's food chain."

Max nodded, slowly, gazing at her with silent respect. "We'll make a detective out of you yet, Al." She just frowned at him. "Anyways, since these people - hackers, I'm thinking - obviously didn't want to stir up any trouble for Starling for...some reason or another, they didn't go to the press, they went to you. And y'know what this tells me?"

"I'm breathless with anticipation."

"Wise-ass. The person who sent this list to you is someone close to you. They know what you're doing, they know just what your resources are, and, most of all, they know just how you'll react to certain stimuli." He grinned. "How am I doing?"

She snorted, shaking her head. "Annoyingly logical."

"Thanks."

"Now quit getting off topic, damnit, and tell me about the voomer." She hissed. "She spoke. Rogues don't do that. They don't have the mental capacity to do it with any degree of conscious thought. If she wasn't libby, then how did it happen?"

"Maybe it was liberated. Maybe the new libbies can go on a psychotic shooting spree, I don't know."

"That's a half-assed answer, Osaka, and you know it. She was two-gee, but she spoke like a three-gee." Alicia hissed at him, leaning in conspiratorially.

"I don't know, alright?" Max snapped harshly, managing to keep his voice low. "Look, maybe it was just a glitch or something, okay? Rogues are unstable enough as it is, maybe it just triggered a random subroutine thingamajig, and..." His left eyebrow twitched slightly. "What do you want me to say, Al?" He growled tightly, his back hunching over in a slouch. "That the voomers might be spontaneously liberating themselves..? That's simply not possible."

Alicia looked over at him for a long moment, her brow knitting in quiet contemplation. "Who are you trying to convince, Osaka..? Me...or you?"

   [1]: mailto:(felching_wang@hotmail.com
   [2]: mailto:Sotai_Phenomenon@whizz.labs.



	2. Consequences, shmonsequences

Gargoyles: AD Police File 2

by Bubblicious (felching_wang@hotmail.com)

  
  


Disclaimer: Some of the characters/concepts here are Disney's, some are AnimeIgo's, some are ADV Films', some are White Wolf Entertainment's, and some are mine. I'm not even going to try to separate them all, and bore you poor readers to death. Enjoy.

  
  


Preface: Welcome back. Same drill as before. Uh...enjoy.

  
  


***

"Aw, come on. It's too early in the morning to have a riot."

ADP Detective Leon McNichols

Bubblegum Crisis: "Blow Up"

  
  


"Let me get this straight, Scratch. Big red thinks...what? That the rogues aren't going rogue at all? That they're evolving?"

Elektra Dracon

Gargoyles: AD Police File 1, Chapter 1

***

  
  


From the journal of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka:

"In 1997, the world was shaken to its core by the discovery of another sentient terrestrial species, known as gargoyles. It called into question everything we'd ever taken to know as fact; everything from theological propositions to historical texts. The church decried them as spawns of Satan, while historical and even proposed Biblical documents heralded them as guardians and angels. Eventually, they were accepted, most of all in New York city, where they're just another tourist attraction.

"In 2027, it was rocked again by the excavation at Atlantis. Long held to be just another convenient myth, the rubble of the great ocean-city of Atlantis made us reexamine how we came to be here. Archeologists claimed that it explained a great many historical oddities, such as the great pyramids of Egypt and the similar Mayan temples. And, with the unearthing of Atlantis, the Black Forest of Germany suddenly came alive again. While still not much more than urban legends, people who have ventured into the forest have claimed to see everything from werewolves to demons. Across the globe, the same things happened. UFO incidents skyrocketed, as did reported tales of the bizarre. Needless to say, the works of H.P. Lovecraft were once again hot commodities.

"Again, in 2028, the advent of voomers raised a new series of questions. Theologians claimed that megacorporations financing voomers were working against God's will, even though they supplied a relatively cheap, inexhaustible supply of gross manual labor. Civil rights activists called it slavery, but Tokyo went from a smoldering pile of rubble in 2034 to the MegaTokyo of 2038. In four years, Tokyo was bigger, better, and booming - all thanks to the voomers and their creators.

"And finally, in 2040, the MegaCrash made us reevaluate everything all over again. Every single voomer in MegaTokyo went rogue at approximately the same time, as the Alpha voomer, Galatea Stingray, sic 'the Sotai,' laid waste to the city. Thousands died, but an even worse disaster was averted, when a vigilante group calling themselves the Knight Sabers took Galatea and her hordes down. The religious right pointed to it as a sign from God, the left cried for voomer rights. The UN passed a number of resolutions that looked good and silenced the left, but changed nothing.

"Now, in the year 2044, we're faced with another dilemma. The voomers are still going rogue. But now, they're getting smarter. Galatea Stingray may have been the only sentient voomer in existence so far, but my feeling is that she may have some brothers and sisters fairly soon here.

"I don't know what this means for the future, and I'm not really sure I want to be here when it happens. My partner, Sergeant Alicia Wyvern, the only gargoyle of the 3rd ADP, and I haven't scarcely had a night in the past week where we weren't facing off against some voomer or another. We haven't seen any trace of the raw emotions we saw in the face of that Bronx voomer, not in the recent rogues.

"I'm not quite sure what's going on anymore. I don't even know if I care. The group of HARDsuited mercenaries we've tagged as the 'Vigilantes' has made a series of hit-and-fade attacks against rogue voomers and, much as I hate saying it, they're doing a better job keeping the situation wrapped up than we are. Most everyone in the ADP hates them for it, and I can understand where they're coming from. I feel a bit resentful myself, but Alicia and I are thankful for all the help we can get.

"Because at this point, it's sorely needed."

  
  


***

  
  


New York

2044

  
  


Max Osaka groaned as the tapping came at his window. His head pounded, his muscles ached, and there was an unfamiliar lump in the bed next to him. And the lump was stirring.

The tapping came again, urgent and aggravating as all hell.

"Alright, alright!" Max growled, running a hand back through his hair as he sat up in bed. Beside him, a young woman poked her head out from under the covers. She was a redhead, hair closely cropped, draping over her cheeks in a fairly becoming fashion. Full red lips and a small nose made her beautiful, and her figure made her stunning. Max looked over at her, blinking away the bleariness, as he tried to force last night, morning, and afternoon back into focus. His day off...he'd gone clubbing with some of the guys from the precinct...gotten plastered...oh, right. Candice Hawke. He'd known her back in the 7th grade, and had run into her at a bar. And then they'd gone back to his place, went through his old Godzilla tapes, and had passed out on his bed without bothering to screw.

God bless Heineken.

Another sharp, angry knock at the window.

"Keep your pants on, Al!" Max yelled towards it as Candice sat up in bed next to him, stretching languidly despite the fact that she wasn't wearing anything more than her underwear.

"Who's Al, and why can't he use the door?" She asked, covering her mouth with a hand as she yawned.

Max swung his feet off the side of the bed, snatching up a pair of sweats as he did so. "Al's my partner, and she can't use the door because my neighbors would freak." He pulled on the sweats and stepped over to the window, grumbling as he fumbled with the latch without bothering to brush the curtains aside.

Candice frowned, brushing a hand back over her scalp and scratching dumbly. She shrugged and flopped back down on the bed. "If you say so."

Max didn't bother responding, instead throwing the window open and stepping back to let his partner in.

Sergeant Alicia Wyvern climbed in through the window, tucking her wings in tight to her back as she did so. She straightened and turned to glare at Max, planting her hands on her hips, glowering down at him. "What the hell took you, Osaka? We've gotta be at work in ten minutes, and we've still got that damn list to - "

Max clamped a hand over her mouth and pointed at the bed. Alicia turned her head slightly to look at Candice's dozing form. She turned back to him, frowning deeper. "You never told me you had a thing for redheads, Max. Now get your ass dressed before you get your ass fired."

  
  


-

Max didn't much like the Marine Corps or the Merchant Marines. They were loud, obnoxious, overbearing, and dumb as bricks to boot. But they did have a useful vocabulary when it came to people like ADP Captain Rebecca Christmas. The term that fit her best - as a desk-jockey most worried about her pension and thus doing everything possible to piss off the least number of people - was, in Max's estimation, something equivalent to 'cheesedick.'

Or something like that.

"You let them do what?!" Both Max and Alicia roared without any sort of preamble.

"For the love of Pete..." Christmas, referred to as 'Bitchmas' behind her back, made a horizontal chopping motion with her hand, leaning forward in her seat and glowering up at the two officers confronting her. "At least close the damned door if you're going to be insubordinate!"

Alicia slapped her tail against the door, shutting it with a reverberating thud.

"You let them take the 55-S remains! Those bastards at Pentex! Just what the hell were you thinking?!"

Christmas' left eyebrow twitched, just slightly. "I had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. You got that, Detective? It was a decision handed down by the Mayor's office. You reading me, Osaka?"

"But..." Max's own eyes twitched, betraying his mind's natural refusal to believe what he'd just heard.

"One might wonder, Detective..." Christmas interrupted, taking a pen in her fingers and rolling it between them slowly, like a cat playing with her prey. "...why you're so interested in the remains of this particular voomer. Nothing in the reports filed by you or your partner listed anything particularly out of the ordinary about this one..." Her eyes narrowed, and a tight, feral smile appeared on her lips.

Well, shit. Alicia thought sourly. She saw right through us. Brilliant.

Again, Max's brows twitched. He straightened, stuffed his hands in his pockets. "It's nothing, Captain-ma'am." He said, in a way that would've let a deaf retarded child know he was lying through his teeth. "I just...uh...I just don't like civilians dicking around with evidence."

"As if it were your call, Detective." Christmas snarled. "Those civilians 'dicking with evidence,' as you so eloquently put it, are the most qualified people on this planet to see just what made it go rogue. I'll see you get a copy of whatever report they file."

Yeah, right, all three thought at once.

"Now get the hell out of my office."

  
  


-

Max went through three cigarettes in just as many minutes, muttering and grumbling to himself as he hunkered down over the wheel, driving at a speed that would have legally been considered reckless. Alicia wasn't much better, picking food out from between her fangs.

"I still say we should've told her." She grumbled. "Hell, we should've included it in the report to begin with."

"Oh, sure. 'Hey, Cap, just so y'know, the booms are getting smart. Yeah, they're after your pension.' Yeah, right. Then we'd have the Army and any number of corporate private armies up in here, and any pretense that we actually do our jobs would go right out the window!" Max stuck his head out the window. "Bye! Bye bye, little pretense! Fly away, precious pretense!"

Alicia elbowed him in the gut, driving her elbow-spur into his side. Max grunted and pulled his head back inside the car. "You've made your point, smart-ass."

"Better'n being a dumb-ass."

"You really want me to hit you, don't you?"

Max shrugged. "Thank you, sir, may I have another?"

"Asshole."

Max opened his mouth to reply, realized his reply wouldn't have made any sense, wisely closed it again. Long moments of silence passed while Max continued to drive.

"Where are we going?" Alicia finally asked, growl-muttering.

"First place on the list; some dive called 'Sodom' in the Chinatown ward."

  
  


-

Max let Alicia lay her 'thing' down, as she called it, while he stood at the office-window, arms folded across his chest as he looked with quiet disgust below him. He didn't particularly mind raves, nightclubs, or strip bars. Far from it, he actually enjoyed them, when they didn't incite people to do stupid things.

But this place was a travesty of the imagination. Even ravers and acid-heads had their dignity, and this place was an affront to the whole subculture. It was gawdy, arrogant, and obviously designed so that the rich and wealthy could pretend they were associating with the poor old common-folk, while they did nothing of the sort. It was too clean, too well maintained, for that. The customers were 'dressed down' to a degree, but they still had the arrogant stink of wealth about them.

It made Max sick to his stomach.

The owner and his top aides were all oily men in cheap Italian suits, drinking cheaper wine. Alicia, who'd grown up in the relative wealth of the Xanatos family, had smelled the wine before they'd even gotten to the office and had told Max exactly what she thought of the people running this place. Now that they'd met them, Max had to agree.

Michael Strauchs waved a fat-fingered hand through the air lazily. "But of course, Sergeant, we will do whatever we can to help you in your investigation."

Alicia smiled tightly, somehow managing to keep the grimace from her face as the man obviously checked her out. "I'm sure you will, Mr. Strauchs. I believe you have several voomers in your service with these serial numbers." She reached inside her coat, pulling a folded piece of paper from her pocket. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed it on the desk before him. With a pudgy hand, he reached out and handed the paper to one of his aides, who looked it over. "We've reason to believe that these voomers may begin exhibiting Sotai phenomenon symptoms within the next few months. We would like to examine them, if we may."

The look of shock on the man's face almost made Alicia snicker out loud. Chew on that, you fat oil-slick.

He recovered shortly, and he plastered another wide grin on his face. "Of course. Simply give my men a moment to locate them..." Strauchs gave the aide with the paper a not-so-subtle nod. "...and we shall take you to them."

"Thank you." Alicia said, forcing the gentle tone into her voice. Max turned from the window and stepped next to her, sticking his hands in his pocket easily.

Not two minutes passed before the aide returned, clicking off a radio as he came in through a reentered through a side door. He nodded to his boss, exhibiting the same lack of subtlety that his boss had. Mafia, they were not.

"Excellent." Strauchs drooled, pushing back from his desk and raising his massive bulk from the chair. "If you'll please follow my aide, officers, he'll take you to the machines you seek."

  
  


-

"...the machines we seek." Max grumbled under his breath, stuffing his hands back in his pockets. "Fat fuckin' gwee -"

Alicia elbowed him in the ribs. "Quiet, you. We've only got one more of these things to look at before we go."

"Yeah, about that. Just what makes you sure the other two were safe?" He whispered back at her, ignoring the sudden soreness in his ribs.

"No initial degradation, no sudden trauma recorded in their CPUs." She shrugged imperceptibly, giving her hair a toss. "Besides, as soon as we leave, they're gonna go over these units with everything they've got and replace the cores anyway. It'll be fine."

"Great. So why don't we just give 'em the list and let them do it?"

"And miss the opportunity to flash around this new shiny toy you guys gave me?" She remarked smartly, thumbing the badge hanging around her neck.

Max just grunted, and followed behind the stiff-necked aide leading them. He led them to a bathroom, where a maintenance voomer was dutifully sweeping up the floor, keeping things clean and fresh for the pompous clientele.

"You there!" The man snapped. The voomer looked up, then straightened, turning to face the group.

"Yes, sir?" It said in an automated voice. "May I help you in some way?"

"Oh, be quiet. We want to take a look at you."

Max's eyes registered the subtlest motions of the voomer's fingers around the mop it wielded. He slowly pulled his hand from his pockets, resting them on his hips, where he had easy access to his gun-belt. Please please please, just let it be my imagination...

"Sir, has my performance been unsatisfactory in some way?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw Alicia's hands disappear behind her back, where he knew she would activate those crazy cyber-gauntlets of hers unseen.

"No, you stupid metal clod, they're with the ADP and they just want to make sure you work! Now switch off already!"

"But...my work..."

"Listen to your owner, you tin-can!" The man strode forward, sniffing angrily as he reached for the voomer's cut-off switch. "I swear, you damn things can be so - gurk!"

The broom-handle came up and around so fast that neither Max nor Alicia saw it coming. The hard end went straight through the man's left eye and came out the back of his head, extending a full bloody meter, soaked in liquid red. "But my work..!"

Alicia crouched and pounced forward, talons extending while her gauntlets pulsed and hummed with destructive power. The corpse fell as Max struggled with his sidearm, pulling the pistol from its holster with, what he felt were, reflexes a deaf, blind and dumb elephant would have. She raked her talons down it's faceplate, shattering one of the glass-like eye-slits. Her mass tackled it to the ground, and they fell, grappling and jockeying for position. Max couldn't draw a bead, and rushing in was a sure-fire way to get himself killed, so he did the only thing he could; he watched like an idiot.

They rolled, slamming into the stalls. Alicia planted a foot on its midsection and heaved, throwing it backwards, flailing. It landed with a heavy metallic clang, shattering and uprooting tile in it's wake. It came to its feet, its single eye gleaming red. Alicia came at it again, fists cocked, knuckle-bombs squealing with energy. The voomer tried to catch her fist, and it did. The explosion took its arm off to the elbow, sending it reeling into the wall again. Alicia brought her fists down on it again and again, each strike punctuated by explosions from her knuckle-bombers. With a final indignant roar that made Max's ears ring, she plunged her fist into it's chest. Metal tore, and her fingers closed around the thing's core. Muscles in her shoulders bunched, and when she ripped her hand free, the core came with it.

  
  


-

From the journal of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka:

"Alicia 'slept' at the station this morning. I'm never going to get used to watching that. She just hops up on the side of the building, strikes a pose, sun comes up, and she turns into stone. There's this sort of...cracking-creaking sound, and her entire body just does this whole mighty-morphin'-thing. Xanatos told me that it was some sort of bio-chemical process that affects all gargoyles. He didn't know about half-gargoyle half-whatever creatures, because he's never had the chance to study one.

"Like I said, freaks me out. But not quite as much as watching them wake up. In that split-second after they've shed their skin, bursting from their shells with an animine howl that could shake the dead, you get a glimpse into their real natures. The barely-suppressed animal fury that we city-slickers have been bred to fear out of habit. But, even beyond that, there's something else. The mystical side of them, the unexplained, inexplicable side...that's what truly terrifies me. I pride myself on being able to get a read on most anyone with just a few cursory glances, but this...there's no way I'll ever be able to feel completely secure around any of them. It's when I watch this, that I can understand why groups like the Quarrymen exist.

"But by the same token, I know they'd never hurt me. It's a truly odd, and thoroughly disconcerting, feeling. And, if it weren't for Alicia, I'd be dead now. Watching her in action, seeing that lithe, feline grace and that sheer, wolfish intensity...even if I were in an XE or a HARDsuit, I couldn't keep up with her, or any of her Clan. I both envy and fear them for this. And it makes me angry - if they were still patrolling, doing the thing that Alicia tells me should come naturally to all gargoyles, then it makes me wonder. If they were still on the beat, would Melissa still be alive..?

"I don't know. I feel like I'm at a precipice, looking into the abyss, with Melissa on one side, silently condemning me for letting her die. On the other, Commissioner Maza, telling me to keep her god-daughter from harm. And above, Alicia, symbol of the strength and speed that I'll never have. Symbolic of the guilt I feel for Mel's death.

"And the abyss...the abyss. Is that my death?

"And if it is, then what is God trying to tell me? To fall?"

  
  


-

"...trippin' all'a these days, never gonna see the end times..."

"Max, you've been singing the same goddamn line over and over again for the past two hours. Enough already."

"Oh, eat me."

Alicia grinned at him, running her tongue over her fangs playfully.

"On second thought, don't."

Max stopped singing, and concentrated instead on his driving, occasionally casting a glance back over his shoulder before turning his eyes back to the stretch of pavement before him. He noted, with a grim sense of amusement, that they were in the Summerlands.

The Summerlands was a burrow in the southern area of Brooklyn. It was home to a number of society's rejects; so-called hackers and mages, astral strand walkers. 'Demon' sightings were a common occurrence down here, and it was a place that even the most grizzled ADP officers, XE pilots, and SWAT-'pounders hated to tread.

And since Alicia had become his partner, Max wound up in the Summerlands at least once a week.

"Goddamn bureaucracy. Makin' me drive through this witch's hellhole..." He grumbled under his breath, so low that even Alicia's advanced hearing couldn't pick it up.

Nevertheless, Alicia turned towards him and flashed a knowing grin. "Oh, come on, Max. You know that you get off on this kind of ambiance."

Max grunted, slouching down in his acceleration seat just slightly. "Ah, shaddap, Al, and tell me what forensics found on that gweedo's voomer."

"What, you mean the shit-cleaning one?"

"Yeah, that one."

"The one that killed that guy?"

"Yes, Al, that one."

"Oh, so you mean that voomer?"

Scowling, Max turned his head just enough to glower at her. "Al, I realize you're handicapped by a natural immaturity, and I forgive you for it. But so help me, if you don't..."

"It was another Pentex core."

Max stared at her blankly for a good few moments, blinking dumbly, before he realized he was about to drive up onto the sidewalk and start bowling for pedestrians. He righted the car quickly, muttering to himself. "Wanna try that again, Al?"

Alicia shrugged, leaning her head back against the headrest and closing her eyes, letting her arm hang slightly out of the window. "It was a Starling L-75 waste disposal model. It was, however, fitted with a core of Pentex model and manufacture, which may explain why it went rogue. However, Forensics is dragging its ass." She grunted disdainfully. "They haven't found enough rogue core material in that thing to fill a cubic centimeter."

Max shook his head, sighing. "It figures. Nothing makes any damned sense anymore. So what the hell was it? Another two-gee acting like a neurotic third generation?"

Alicia's mouth split into a fang-filled snarl. "If it was, then that makes Pentex two-for-two." Her left eye opened lazily, stared at him for a moment, then closed again. "Just how long are we going to suppress knowledge of this, Max?"

"And just what the hell are we suppressing, Al? All we know at this point is that we continually run into voomers who like to talk. And kill. That's fine with me. I say let 'em talk. When it comes to killing...well, yeah, I guess we gotta do somethin' about that, but..."

"Damnit, Max!" Alicia snapped, her face twisting into a snarl, though her eyes remained closed. "Something's going on, and we still haven't done a fucking thing with that list!"

"Yes we have!" Max shouted back, his grip on the wheel tightening 'till his knuckles went white. "We went after that voomer at Sodom, and we nearly got our asses ripped off! Just what in the hell would you have me do, huh?!"

She didn't respond, though the swirl of her hair about her shoulders told him that she was looking out the window. Seconds stretched into minutes as they continued patrolling. Max radioed in once. As he clicked off the radio, she finally spoke again.

"I don't know what's gotten into you, Max, but you've sat on this thing for two days. You've convinced me to falsify two reports to our superiors, and you've had me lie to my Clan. And I can't figure out why, save for one reason."

Max didn't bother responding.

"You don't want to stop them, do you?" Alicia's head came around, and her gaze locked on his face. "I'm giving you two days to pull off...whatever it is you're trying to pull off here. After that, I'm giving the list to Elisa and Alex."

  
  


-

"I have just received word from the CI department." Richard Starling said evenly, his hands bridged over the lower half of his face, lending an air of hawkish superiority to his already impressive demeanor. "Operations Director Katsuragi tells me again that they have been unable to obtain the identities of the hackers who downloaded our Purple files."

Lucinda filed away the various names, instantly recalling what they were and what they signified; the CI, or counter-intelligence, department was responsible for warding off hackers, deckers, slicers, and other corporate espionage activists. The Purple files were Starling's sic-name for the files that he kept, tracking all the voomers with defects that could lead to the possibility of rogue occurrences. It also referred to a number of certain other projects that Lucinda knew could destroy not only Starling, but everyone who worked for him as well.

She crossed her arms over her chest, tossing her black-on-white hair with a cocky shake of her head. "Keller's no help, either. Research continues to...well. It seems all they can do is complain. And, of course, the children..."

"Oh, yes." Starling's face soured noticably. "The children. Quite the little Sothoth's, aren't they?"

"Cthulhu's own spawn, Rick." Her lips curled. "But, then, the Weaver and those damned pet-children of hers can't be allowed to..."

"Yes, I know. And I'm well aware of the price I paid Oberon for them and their mother, as well. But you've gotten me off topic, my darling Lucy-lou. Katsuragi has allowed our mainframe security to slacken. As a result, a group of terrorists has made off with a highly sensitive document that could seriously damage this company's reputability."

"Which one, sir?"

"The list, of course. The other one is of...minor importance."

She blinked, stumbling backwards a pace as if struck. "Sir..?"

"Relax, Lucinda. If word of that project gets out, no one will possibly believe it. It would appear to be just a poorly-hatched smear campaign designed by my enemies."

"I...see, sir." She frowned, then shrugged. "It's your call, of course."

"That's right, it is." Starling's eyes narrowed to slits. "And Katsuragi has apparently forgotten this. I want you to explain to her the error of her ways. Take control of the investigation. I'll supervise the children until you can track these hackers back to their lair. Destroy them, and anyone who's seen that list."

"And if they've given it to the police..?"

"We'll deal with that if and when it comes up."

"And Katsuragi..?"

Starling's eyes slackened just slightly, though the hard gleam never left. "You know how I hate to waste my resources, but if she can't be salvaged..." He shook his head, leaning back in his chair. "Deal with it. I want this matter resolved."

  
  


-

They were almost out of the Summerlands when it happened.

Max and Alicia had been chatting, going back and forth in their typical wise-assed banter, laughing and joking. Max had even let her drive, though she didn't have the same experience behind the wheel he did.

It was when they passed by an old, beat-up building that looked like it was ready to fall apart - much like every other building in the Summerlands, though it was all deceptive - that the whole thing went to hell.

One minute, they were just cruising along, chatting away and keeping a look-out for the non-existent crime in that portion of the city; the next, they were embroiled in the middle of an unnatural civil war among beasts and monsters.

Some were hideous creatures; humans, or what had once been, that now shambled along gracelessly, swinging forearms as large around as a construction-voomer's leg. Open sores oozed thick yellow pus, misshapen faces twisted into barely-recognizable masks of rage.

The rest were, Max wouldn't find out until later, werewolves. They fought and cut at each other with tooth, blade and claw. Most had finely-trimmed and tuned pelts of black and brown, and carried themselves with a self-assured air that signaled them as professionals. The others...were hideous, shambling, and infinitely deadly. They wove in and out of the clean-pelts, glowing green and red eyes and hideous, boiling tattoos that luminesced in disgusting neon colors.

The first indication that something was wrong was when the vivisected corpse of one of the clean-pelts - a mammoth creature, whose impact cratered the whole front end of the car, sending it into a spin - landed with a deafening crunch of metal, bone and sinew on the hood. Alicia swore, slamming her foot on the brakes and trying to regain control while Max grabbed desperately for what was affectionately called the 'oh-shit-handle' attached to the dashboard.

Her efforts merely made the spin worse, and slammed the cruiser through the wall of the nearest building. The entire wall came down, as rats and squatters alike went scrambling for cover as mortar and flotsam came raining down upon them.

"Sonuvabitch!" Max swore viciously, shrugging out of his seatbelt and looking over to Alicia. She groaned, holding a hand to her head.

"I'm fine..." She groaned, though blood streamed down between her fingers, circling down around her wrist. "What the hell hit us..?"

"I don't know." Max growled, throwing open his door, stepping out, and drawing his sidearm in three fluid movements. Alicia stepped out of the driver's side, brandishing a Lancer-Arms Mk. 3 heavy assault rifle. Max whistled appreciatively. "About damned time."

"Yeah, yea - oh, God." The gun fell from Alicia's fingers, and her hands flew to her mouth, her eyes widening in stark horror. She stared at the corpse on the hood of the car, shaking her head slowly. "Oh, God...June..."

Max's brow knit, and his frown deepened. "Al? Yo, Al, what the hell is this thing?" No answer. "Hey, Al!" Nothing. "Damnit, Al, look at - Holy Christ!"

One of the metahuman creatures staggered into the hole the cruiser had made, irregular and broken fangs dripping with mucous and saliva. And blood. Misshapen claws ran red with the vitals of another creature.

Max stared, dumbfounded, at the sorry creature, his eyes wide; his pupils dilated in abject terror. His mouth opened and closed as he searched for any word, any obscenity, to hurl at the thing. He totally forgot about the handgun in his hands as the thing approached. A cruel, gnarled hand, dripping from open sores, reached for him. It moved fast, but, somehow...Max saw it moving in slow motion.

Something in the back of his mind snapped. He hop-stepped to the side as his self-defense training came back to him. His foot snapped up and around, catching the creature across the jaw. Its head snapped back, and it let loose an inhuman howl as it staggered. Max's foot touched the pavement again, launching him into a hurricane-kick that put the creature flat on it's back. Max's feet again came into contact with the ground, dropping him into a crouch as he snapped the gun in his hands into firing position again. He squeezed the trigger twice, spraying blood and a thick, black, vomitous substance all over everything behind the creature.

It died shrieking.

As for Max...the world around him slowed down. As the dust settled, he could make out the individual grains; could even count them. He felt faster, he knew he was faster.

Death surrounded him. The scent of it filled his nostrils; the acrid metal-liquid stench of blood. The sight of it was all around; disfigured and vivisected corpses, some with fur, most with pallid white skin. The sound of it; the cries of the damned, the howls of the wolves...

And Alicia's own tortured screams.

She came into the fight mere seconds after Max, tears streaming from eyes glowing blood red. Her gauntlets remained dormant; she waded in with tooth and talon, but Max could see every move she made. She moved faster than he should have been able to track, moving in and out of the creatures and their bestial overlords, her talons drawing blood wherever they went.

But Max was still faster.

Even as one of the wolves, its crooked teeth reeking of death, came at him, swinging with claws meant to rend flesh down to the bone, powered on by muscles that could have ripped limbs clean off, Max moved. It slashed high, he evaded. It kicked low, he jumped. His foot snapped up and around with enough force to send the wolf rocking. 

Max's feet hit the ground, and he tossed the gun away. He wouldn't need it.

The world moved; the whirlwind of death continued.

Max stepped away from the next clumsy attack, the already enraged beast going further insane. His fist rocketed upwards, slamming into its solar plexus. With a surprised grunt, it fell like a pile of bricks, inertia dumping it into an unceremonious heap behind him, whimpering pitifully.

When Max's foot came down again, the wolf's throat snapped.

Two more of the human-like creatures came at Max, shrieking and screaming from gaping maws that had once been mouths. Shock-white hair whipped behind them as they moved at speeds the average human eye would be hard-pressed to track. Max flipped gracefully over them, reacting on instincts he didn't know he had. The creatures stumbled, confused and disoriented. Max came up behind the creature on his left, grabbing it by the jaw and the back of the head. It shrieked in pain and protest one minute; its neck snapped the next.

The creature's partner whirled as Max dropped the now-lifeless thing from his grip. It stepped back apace, huge, carapace-like eyes swiveling around in their sockets. Max's mouth slowly split into a grin as he eased himself back into a defensive stance.

The creature came at him, arms swinging clumsily like clubs. Max caught one, flipped the thing easily onto its back. His hand knifed in at the thing's throat, crushing the Adam's apple back into the spinal column.

Max stood, whirled to face the next attacker, adrenaline coursing through him.

But, it was all over. Alicia crouched near the corpse of a human-creature, her talons still wrapped around its throat, her eyes wild and insane as she continued squeezing. The clean-pelts howled in triumph, pumping their fists into the air.

And time commenced its normal run.

  
  


-

"Interesting. Very interesting."

"Yes. The first child has begun his maturation. We recalled Kali at precisely the right time, it seems."

"So the old crone prophesied correctly for once. Now we just see about the other two, and perhaps..."

"Thank you, son. I'm well aware of what happens if we fail here."

  
  


-

  
  


"His name was June-Moon-Rising. He was a member of the Puking Rats tribe."

Alicia's cheeks were sallow, tear-streaks marred her face. Her hair hung around her face loosely, and she looked so pitiable that Max wanted to cry. It was like all the vitality had been sucked out of her.

"The Rats moved into the Summerlands shortly after my Clan stopped..." Her voice cracked. She paused for a moment, then started again. "June was the only man I ever loved. The only man I ever...became one with. He was there for me after my father died. He was the first person who seemed...real.

"He was a werewolf. They're like gargoyles; they protect the humans and wolves they spawn with. Their kinfolk protect them." A slight, emotionless smile split her lips slightly. "Just like the humans and gargoyles of old."

Max nodded. It made sense, and if Alicia said it was so, then, well...he just had to trust her.

"I was...Alex's envoy to them. He knew the tribe's elders would respond to a gargoyle emissary better than they would to a human they didn't know. I was their go-between for awhile, running guns, armor, and supplies to the Rats, helping them establish a covert presence in the Summerlands. During that time, June and I got to know each other. We even went on patrol together a few times. He was the one who...who..." She trailed off, her voice ending in a choked sob. Her head sagged down to her knees, her hair cascading around her shoulders and framing her face as she shed her tears.

Max rolled his glass between his fingers, staring into and through it, and the whiskey within. "He was your first, wasn't he?"

"My only."

The response didn't surprise Max. Nothing this day did, though he knew it should have. He tried to examine just why that was, but for some reason, his mind had formed a sort of barrier over that part of his psyche. It didn't surprise him, but it...frustrated him. A great deal.

"The Puking Rats have been here since the late '30s, then."

Alicia nodded, brushing tears from her eyes and slouching lower against the couch. "Yes...they have..."

"Why?"

She sniffed, cocking her head slightly as she turned to look at him. "What...what do you mean..?"

"The Rats must have come for a reason. They didn't show up just because your Clan retired. There had to be another reason. What is it?"

Alicia stared at him for a long time, her eyes and face - tear-stained and haggard - took on the look of a creature whose fight-or-flight response had just kicked in. She turned her eyes away from him, looked at the Shin Seikei Evangelion poster Max had hanging outside the kitchen.

After long moments, she spoke. "The Christians believe in two primal forces dueling for supremacy. To an extent, this is correct, though not wholly so. The Muslims and Jews believe in the same. The Wicca and their ilk as well, though not to such extremes." She inhaled, closing her eyes, as her face and posture shed tension like a second skin. "The garou - the werewolf society - follow more the path of the Greek and the Babylonians; they believe in the universe's triumvirate. They call it the Triat.

"It is composed of the Wyld, the Weaver, and the Wyrm. The Wyld is the universe's creator; it creates life, dances and plays with it. The Weaver shapes. She is the one responsible for giving life its many forms, and she is the one who nurtures the need of every sentient to have things make sense. The Wyrm...is the great destroyer. Satan, Shiva, Ares, Ctha-lu. Maybe even the creature called Leviathan. He was responsible for seeing that the order was maintained, that life was transitory.

"Weaver became jealous of Wyld; she could shape, but she could never create. She wanted to create. Her servants worried and fretted, but did nothing. Weaver came to watch the Wyrm at work. She watched as he did his job, devouring the things she'd slaved to shape. For millennia, she watched while the Wyld effortlessly created and cavorted, making things that she had to shape and give form. She did it tirelessly, but by the same token, she resented it. He constantly defied her sense of order. As did the Wyrm.

"So she captured the Wyrm. She spun him into her webs and trapped him. She tried also to capture the Wyld, but he escaped her clutches and went into hiding, such as Zeus hid from Hera. Millennia passed, and the Wyrm went insane.

"Finally, a servant of the Weaver, a creature called Ananasa, rose against her progenitor and tried to free the Wyrm. She failed, but the Weaver's hold on the Wyrm weakened. Suddenly, the servants of the Wyrm were reawakened. They, like their master, went mad. They rushed forth in droves of thousands of millions, slaughtering and destroying. The natural order had been destroyed.

"The garou fought them. It's been an uphill battle the whole way. Garou can't mate with each other, lest their children be disfigured and malformed. And their numbers have only recently begun to rise again."

She inhaled, running a hand shakily back through her hair. "And the Wyrm isn't their only enemy. The Weaver is still hunting for the Wyld. Humans hate the garou, as you well know. The werewolves we fought against today were members of an insane tribe called the Black Spiral Dancers. They are the fallen garou; open and willing servants of the Wyrm, completely insane and corrupted by its madness. They destroy all that they see and touch. And the humans...the mega-corporations, or, at least, some of them, are led by servants of the Wyrm. Their 'black' projects are all meant to cut the Weaver's last ties to the Wyrm. These corporations are led by the most vile, disgusting people humanity has ever churned out.

"Corporations like Pentex are run, literally, by Satan's servants."

Max's jaw fell open. Finally, something had managed to surprise him, jarring the block in his mind, but not shattering it. The empty glass in his hands fell from his nerveless fingers, shattering on the floor. "My God...Pentex...the cores...those were..."

"Intentional. It's possible. It may even be likely." She turned her face back to face him, her eyes narrowed to dark slits. "Now you know why I wanted to tell the Captain and Commissioner. This may be how Pentex is attempting to free the Wyrm. The garou fight these servants of the Wyrm. 

"And, as it happens, New York is Pentex's headquarters."

  
  


-

Max didn't feel like eating. He hadn't when he'd excused himself from the table, (much to Delilah Avalon's vexation) and he still didn't, even as he walked through the multi-level atrium that separated the Aerie building from Wyvern castle itself. As he stood on the inside of the plexiglas barriers that served as the building's outside walls at these levels, he reflected and considered.

His mind whirled back and forth over the various possibilities of the day. He could analyze and evaluate everything that had happened since he'd gone on duty earlier tonight...god. How long ago had that been? Three hours? Jumping Jesus on roller-blades. Three hours, and everything had been turned upside down on him - again.

Werewolves, elemental forces beyond the reckoning of man's imagination, his own sudden superpowers...what the hell was going on with the world these days?

He vaguely remembered the fight he'd had with Alicia. His feelings were still muddled as he looked down at his hands; he'd washed off the blood, but it still felt...dirty. Oily.

"That feeling of filth on your body...it's from your contact with the Wyrm's servants."

Max whirled, reaching for the gun he'd checked at the security desk downstairs. He relaxed, straightening back up and stuffing his hands deep into his pockets. "Hey, Christine."

Christine Xanatos arched a single elfin eyebrow, clasping her hands behind her back demurely, almost hiding them in the long black hair that reached the small of her back before ending in a tapered cut. Pointed elfin ears stuck out slightly from beneath her hair, and pupilless black eyes gazed softly at Max's face, even as he averted her gaze. She was petite, and classically beautiful, with a slim, curvaceous figure, accentuated by the folds of the simple white-and-black robes she wore.

Her mouth split into a slight grin. "Try not to sound so happy to see me, Detective Osaka."

"Sorry." He mumbled, turning back to the city-scape, still not daring to look at her. He found her exceedingly attractive, and knew that if he were to even look at her, he'd end up gawking, and his imagination would run away with him. And, somehow, Christine had the daunting ability of being able to almost read his mind on a whim. She'd embarrassed him several times already, much to the delight of the Clan and his constant consternation, but, this was the first time the two of them had actually been alone in the same room. 

And he didn't know her well enough to trust that she wouldn't rip his head off if he had a single impure thought.

He didn't hear her move; nevertheless, she was at his side, staring out across the city before he realized she'd even moved. "You're distracted by everything that's happened recently, aren't you?"

"Nah, I'm fine. Ol' ironguts Osaka, that's me."

"That's what Detective Shields called you."

To his credit, Max gave no outward sign that her comment had reached him. Inwardly, he felt his guts twist, as though some unseen hand had simply grabbed a handful and forcibly rearranged everything. "Yep. Melly used to call me that." A slight smile creased his lips. "I once managed to put away five chili-dogs at a picnic the precinct threw in the park, all without feeling froggy afterwards. That's how I earned that nickname."

Christine shook her head, her shoulders quaking in silent laughter. "I remember that picnic. That chili could've been easily mistaken for radioactive isotopic residue."

"But damn, did it taste...that was six years ago!"

"So?"

"And you remember something that trivial?"

Christine shrugged slightly. "A gift from my pater, I would assume. I remember everything I see, hear, and experience. Pleasure, pain...everything."

Max winced visibly. "Even that nasty taste in your mouth after you wake up; like a bullfrog crawled down your throat and died the night beforehand?"

She laughed, making Max's heart skip a beat. Damn, but she is intoxicating.

"Yes, even that sandpapery feeling. Thank the gods for toothpaste, hmm?"

"Indeed," he agreed readily.

They stood in silence for another moment, looking out across the city.

"Alicia told us about your argument earlier. She didn't give Commissioner Maza the list. She said she'd give you your two days, but..."

"...but it's a moot point now." Max snorted, shaking his head sharply. "She's already made the decision for me. If I withhold information from the chief, I'm interfering with the ongoing investigation as to just what the hell is still making the voomers go rogue." He sighed deeply, dragging a hand down his face and scratching along the insides of his eyes. "I'll...get her a copy of the list tomorrow, before I go on duty."

Christine nodded delicately, her bangs bobbing ever-so gently. "I believe that will set Alicia's mind at ease, at least partially. She is...taking June's death rather hard at the moment. She'll be taking a day or two off to sort things out. Tie up loose ends with the Rats, perhaps attend his funeral..."

"That'd be good for her." He rolled his neck, eliciting two loud 'pops' from his vertebrae. "And it'll give me a chance to catch up on all that paperwork that's been piling up on my ass."

"Max, Elisa has offered the same amount of time off to you."

Max's head whirled. His face creased into a huge frown, his brow wrinkling heavily. "What in the - why? I just had a day off!"

"I'd hardly call getting drunk and passing out after a Cinemax Monster Movie Marathon taking time off."

"Oh, what would you know? That kind of thing's as deeply ingrained into a cop's psyche as coffee and donut - "

Christine cut him off with a sharp look, her brow furrowing in a manner that shut him up almost instantly. "Max...you've been through a lot in the past month and a half. You've lost a partner and a best friend, and you've gained another one. You've faced down at least ten voomers, you've seen your fellow officers get gunned down. You are currently involved in a conspiracy stretching across megacorporations, and it could be said that, by attempting to track down every voomer on that list - or, at least, all those in New York - you have taken the welfare of the entire city's populace into your own hands. You are now also aware of extradimensional forces and wars that have been raging on all around you, ever since before your first racial memory. Face it; you're tired."

Max didn't want to agree. He fought with every fiber of his being to disagree with her. To just look her dead in the eye and say, 'I can handle it.' But he'd be lying. And he'd burn out; fast and hard, probably taking someone down with him.

"You're tired, Max. But you don't want to trust it to anyone else. And, at the same time, you don't want to see Alicia get hurt." Christine smiled wryly, tucking her hands into the folds of her robes. "That's why you didn't give Elisa the list in the first place. That's why you still don't want to. And that's why you never tracked the voomers on that list down while you were on-duty."

Max sagged. She was right, and he desperately didn't want her to be. He didn't know what he wanted, but, damnit, he didn't want her to be able to read him so completely. Yet, at the same time...it felt good. Somewhere inside him, a burden was suddenly gone, and it felt...good. Really, really good.

Time passed. Max and Christine got to talking some more, commenting on everything from political views to the weather to the garou and the rest of the sentient terrestrial species' that Max didn't know about.

By the night's end, he knew of the fey and their dark brethren; of the uber-mages, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Illuminati. He knew of her past, and the pasts of her parents and grandparents.

And she knew almost everything about him. Even about the 'evolve' tattoo, written in kanji, on the inside of his left hip.

  
  


-

Every decision she had to make these days juggled someone's life. She felt as if she were both the King and the Pawn. The choice was ultimately hers, she knew. But each decision led to the same conclusion; death, destruction, and sorrow.

Elisa Maza stared at the disk in her fingers, almost wishing it to go away. She sincerely wanted the power to do that. But, of course, it wouldn't go away; the list Max had given her would still be there, in her hands.

Old hands. Grizzled, wrinkled hands, that had seen the light of the sun for too long. I'm a relic. I should have died when he did. Now...my revenge is all I have left. And God forgive me for it.

A single, wrinkled finger touched the keypad of her computer, calling up speed-dial. The phone was answered.

"This is Commissioner Elisa Maza..."

  
  


-

From the journal of Detective 2nd-class Max Osaka:

"I take back everything I ever said about Christine Xanatos. She doesn't scare me anymore; not after our talk. No, she's the kindest, most caring creature I've ever met. She gives freely of her time and energy, with no thought to recompense at all. And God, what a body.

"She reminds me of Melly.

"I've decided to take the Commissioner's offer of another few days off. Tonight, Alicia and the Clan are attending June-Moon-Rising's funeral. It's supposedly a big event for the Rats; representatives from the three main urban tribes are attending; the Fianna, the Glass Walkers, and the Bone Gnawers. There's some sort of party or feast afterwards that the squirt, Drake, just could not shut up about. 

"Eugh. I don't want children. Lord knows I don't want children. Especially after those terror-cubs (y'know, the mutates who can throw around lightning like a damn comic-book supervillain) zapped me with those freakin' lightning-bolts again. I swear, my ass has enough static charge at this point to fry a voomer.

"At any rate, I gave the Starling-list to the Commissioner earlier this morning. She sent me back home, under orders to get some rest. Earlier, that sounded like a really good idea. But now...

"...I saw the abyss in my dreams. I stood at its perimeter and looked down. It was...black. The deepest black, that no light can possibly penetrate. It was like a train wreck; I desperately wanted to look elsewhere, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. I've tried desperately to analyze just what the hell it meant, but I can't figure it out. I told Christine, and she said she didn't know either. Looked like she meant it, too.

"Except she hesitated.

"Just what the hell is going on in this town? I'm fucking Superman alluvasudden, my partner's been shtupping a dead werewolf, and the girl I was this close to feeling anything remotely resembling romantic attachment towards is lying through her teeth. Like she knows something, but doesn't want to say so.

"It's...annoying. It's really annoying. It's so damned annoying, it's just...oh, forget it. End of Evangelion is playing on the idiot-box again; I'll write more later, after Shinji quits choking the bishop.

"Like it'll make more sense later. Right."

  
  


-

"Fascinating." Richard Starling murmured under his breath. "Fascinating indeed. She turns on her own..? No, of course not." His mouth split into the slightest display of a smile. "She doesn't know."

"That would be the most logical conclusion, Rick." Lucinda grumbled, tapping away on her personal data-assistance unit. "At any rate, the file was earmarked specifically for that winged tramp."

"Yes. Any thoughts?"

"Just one, sir." Her lips broke into a feral smile, her eyes narrowing darkly. "The hacker, or hackers, are associated with the Aerie Clan in some manner. It's not someone inside the organization directly."

"Why not?" Starling already knew the answer; he was testing her. She found it mildly irritating that he still did that.

"Because that whelp of Xanatos' would have handled it himself. These hackers wanted it handled officially, to put pressure on us and make sure that this kind of experimentation never happened again. To do that, they'd have to give it to someone they thought they could trust to do the right thing, who had all the connections needed to get an investigation rolling. That bitch, Alicia, was apparently the most logical choice."

"Indeed." Starling's eyes narrowed. "And based on your conclusions, who would you conclude this hacker would be?"

"Is this a joke? The only people in existence with the necessary skills and contacts are Nene Romanova, Lexington Wyvern, and the Shadowrunner Silk. Neither Romanova nor Silk have any affiliation with Alicia Wyvern."

"You're sure?"

Lucinda rolled her eyes. "For Christ's sake, Richard. Romanova's in Japan, working with the United Nations Voodoo Organic Metal Extension Resources Anti-Terrorism Board, and Silk is in Antarctica, tracking down a Snow Dragon. He's been there for the past six months. It must be Lexington Wyvern. No one's seen or heard from him for the past decade; even his godson thinks he's dead."

"The perfect background from which to launch a series of anonymous raids on the super-conglomerates..."

"Exactly."

"Well done, my dear." He smiled slyly. "Now find him. Kill him, and anyone who's working for him. These damned Wyld-lings must be made to understand that I will not tolerate their half-assed interference."

"Understood, sir." She sneered. "Happily."

"Now, what else do we have to talk about?"

"Pentex, sir."

Starling scowled deeply. "That idiot Moran is moving his Niggurath project too quickly. Our own Tiamat and CyberSolutions' Agru projects have to be completed in tandem. Simply because the first point, the Sotai, and the second, the Wyvern, are both nearing completion, does not mean that the schedule can be rushed. If he thinks otherwise, then he is truly a far greater idiot than we initially suspected."

"The usual threats and warnings, then?"

Starling grunted. "Don't bother. Just feed the head of his board of directors to the Children. If the bastard continues to remain obstinate, feed him next."

  
  


-

Elektra Dracon held a cup of steaming green tea in her hands, staring past the pale reflection of herself, out into the night. Manhattan was once again alive tonight. She could practically feel the impotent rage of the police, the wanton anger of the populace, even from her 20th-floor suite. She relished it; the sheer lawlessness that was the reality of New York City, and indeed the world, these days.

She was thin and waif-like, with features that made her look elfin in comparison to most humans. Her ears had a slight tapering effect to them, but she still passed for human. Alone, she was physically stunning. The jewelry she wore, a delicate necklace and moderated emeralds that sparkled half-as-bright as the fire in her eyes, and the black kimono she sported, leant her an air of dangerous, feminine authority.

Elektra sipped at her tea, while dwelling on events of the past month. The voomers...yes. Big Red, the creator and de facto leader of the Vigilantes, had told her a month ago that the voomers - particularly, Starling Incorporated's models - were beginning to...what was the phrase he coined so eloquently? "Going in, then out, of their collective minds." Something to that effect.

As the financial backer of the Vigilantes, she was privy to all the information Red had access to, after all.

So she'd placed a call to Starling. Had a particularly belligerent encounter with his aide de camp, a 3rd-generation voomer woman with a cold streak as deep as the white in her hair named Lucinda. She'd finally maneuvered her way around Lucinda, and gotten ahold of Starling himself. He hadn't known what she was talking about, of course. But he invited her to visit. She accepted.

And then she'd sold her soul to the devil.

She sighed with a false drama, lifting the teacup to her lips again. "Madman. But his money's as good as anyone else's."

"Milady Elektra..?"

Elektra turned from the balcony window, fixing the man who'd spoken with an impassive gaze. "Yes, Scratch, what is it?"

The man known as Scratch was her right hand man. He was almost twice her senior, and he'd served the Dracon family, even back during Tony Dracon's heyday. But Tony Dracon was killed in prison, as was his cellmate, a man named Tomas Brode. Tony's top aide, a man called 'Glasses,' retired afterwards. The next Dracon in line, Elektra's father, Nathaniel Dracon, saw to it that Glasses' retirement was made somewhat more...permanent. Scratch had risen through the ranks swiftly, and he'd displayed a level of loyalty to the Dracon family that could only be described as inspiring. Oh, he was paid an exorbitant amount of money, to be sure, but Elektra had no doubt that he felt he owed the Dracon family a debt that could be repaid only with his life.

Such mindless devotion was easily exploitable. And she'd exploited him often, helping him move through the ranks of the Dracon syndicate rapidly, in exchange for the occasional favors; a hit here or there. The usual.

Nathaniel Dracon died of lung cancer. A lung cancer that came on suddenly, and simply struck him dead within a week. Elektra had superseded her brother's authority, and taken over the Dracon syndicate for herself. When he'd tried to protest, she'd made sure he disappeared.

And now, Scratch was loyal only to her.

"They're here." Scratch said simply, stepping away from the double doors, throwing them wide as he did so.

Three figures, one lumbering, awkward, and massive, stepped into the room. They wore suits of armor of gleaming red, white, and yellow. 

Big Red. Pure White. Angry Yellow.

Those were the names Elektra had mentally assigned to the three members of the Vigilantes. Big Red was the leader. She knew the least about him, and yet she'd taken him into her bed several times.

God, whoever had taught him how to make love, they'd done their job well.

Kevin O'Leary wore the massive white suit. He was the heavy weapons expert of the group, and she knew that he could be the most troublesome of the three. He was the group's conscience, and, though he was a massive, lumbering idiot, he seemed to strike a chord in both Red and Yellow. Elektra sighed inwardly; he could definitely be a problem, but, God help her, she actually liked the dolt. He symbolized the purity of spirit and essence that she had never bothered to attain.

Angry Yellow...yes, that was definitely Christiana Asuncion. She was a martial artist with a history veiled in secrecy. She bore scars all across her body. Scars so deep, that they stood out like tattoos. She had once been a street fighter in Brazil, fighting for respect and money. And she got both; she'd dominated the fighting cages wherever she went. No man could put a hand on her. She'd mastered a number of martial arts forms, including the art of vibroblade combat. The truly impressive part, however, was that she was self-taught.

Something haunted the woman's past, however. And try as she might, Elektra had been completely unable to track down just what it was that filled the woman with so much cold, impotent fury, driving her to prove herself again and again.

But, again, the most dangerous was Big Red himself. He had within him...a seed of evil. Not the evil of the Bible, the struggle of God against Satan...no, the seed he bore within his heart and soul was that of a lost spirit, betrayed and driven to madness. She'd seen it, only fleetingly, the last time he'd had sex with her.

He had almost killed her then.

And now, he was her project.

"Thank you, Scratch. Please, come in, lady and gentlemen. I'd offer you seats, but I'm afraid those HARDsuits you're wearing would simply crush my furniture." Elektra affected a cool smile. "Can I get you anything..? Something to drink, perhaps?"

Red shook his head, but Kevin, lifting up the visor of his faceplate, turned a sour glare on Scratch. "Whiskey. Lots of it."

Elektra nodded to Scratch, who stepped to the bar and proceeded to scrounge around for the drink.

Red growled, the external speakers of his HARDsuit making his voice sound tinny and mechanical. "You drink too much, O'Leary. Your liver must be made of stone."

"I'm Irish." The larger man grumbled, accepting the drink from Scratch and going to work on the bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Elektra, out of sheer amusement, watched as he put back the whole thing in one gulp, lucidly handing the empty bottle back to a stunned Scratch.

"Why've you called us here, Mrs. Dracon?" Red growled, crossing his arms over his chest, drumming metallic talons on his forearms. "We have better things to be doing."

"Yes, I know. I do have my own puppets inside the ADP. Now, as to why I asked you here..." She turned back to the balcony door, setting the empty cup-and-saucer down on the bar as she passed it. "I have a certain number of friends with private interests. Given the nature of my profession, this should come as no surprise to you."

"Consider me floored." Red droned sarcastically. "You're beating around the bush. Get to it."

"Recently, a number of potentially dangerous files were hacked from an acquaintance's database and delivered to a small voomer-engineering and processing firm, down in the corporate ward. I want to hire you and your team to retrieve these files, and to teach this firm the error of its ways." She smirked. "Raid the main offices, and trash a warehouse. Your payscale is...negotiable."

Elektra expected a response from Red; what she got was a thick Irish brogue. "Sorry, missy..." Kevin grumbled, shutting the visor on his helmet. "But we don't do freelan - "

"Quiet, Kevin." Red growled. It was barely over a whisper, hardly noticeable, but full of import and warning.

Kevin's head turned, and he stared at his boss with, what Elektra assumed, was a look of absolute shock.

"Nine million." Red said matter-of-factly. "To be deposited into our joint account upon completion. What about the hackers?"

"Oh..." Elektra's mouth split into a sinister grin. "...they're being handled."

  
  


-

"Christ, this thing stinks." One of the medical technicians snarled under his breath, waving in front of his nose in a vain attempt to get rid of the smell.

The werewolf hunkering down in the corner, digging into a ham-shank hungrily, looked up, glaring daggers at the med-tech. "Be quiet! He was one of our kind's greatest warriors. Show respect to him, human."

"Yes." The Doctor said shortly, a thick Eastern European brogue springing from lips parched and cracked with age, as he peered down at the mummified corpse prone on the table. "Don't forget, my dear August, that you sold him to us for a paltry meal. This shell is now our property."

The werewolf seemed to shrank away, but he managed a challenging snarl. "That 'paltry meal' will help to feed thousands in the inner city..."

"Save the excuses for someone who cares. Now get out of here. You've done your job."

  
  


-

Lucinda's mouth broke into a feral smile. "We have them now."

Starling simply gazed at her impassively. "Indeed. Then handle it. I expect those files to be on my desk by morning."

  
  


-

Kenji Cromwell peered around the corner, sticking his head slowly, warily around the side of the doorway, to peek into the crack of the door. Over and over he tried to tell himself that this was wrong, unethical, and completely improper. And over and over again, he refused to listen to himself.

So, here he was, trying to get a peek of Miyu in the shower.

It wasn't necessarily easy-going; she was an enhanced, liberated 3rd-generation voomer, after all. It wasn't exactly a simple matter to sneak up on them. But he'd been quiet thus far, moving slowly and carefully. He'd managed to creak the bathroom door open a crack, and he could hear her singing - a sweet, melodious sound that made his ears tingle. He nudged the door open another inch, pressing his face into the crack just slightly. There. He could see her. Her back was arched as she washed shampoo and conditioner from blood-red hair that ran down to her shoulders. He drank in the sight of her; synthetic muscles coiling in intricate patterns down along the length of her spine, in her arms and shoulders. Water cascaded down white skin that seemed dyed, down the tattoo of a gryphon and dragon battling in a yin-yang pattern that sat between her shoulder-blades.

God, Kenji thought to himself as he watched her. She's beautiful.

It was halfway through that first thought when the first explosion put him flat on his ass.

  
  


-

Kenji would have sworn that he hadn't been down and dazed for more than a second. And yet, in that second, two things had happened; the intruder-alarms within the sub-basements the Underground Railroad lived in blared to irritating life. And Miyu had come out of the shower, wearing nothing but a towel, standing over him.

And she was glaring right at him.

"You..." She growled, voice barely above a whisper. "I'll...kill you, Cromwell..."

"Krul think that need to wait." A deep, basso voice grunt-yelled from down the corridor. Both Kenji and Miyu turned to see the ogre Krul, followed by his loyal dog, Dog, come pounding towards them. "We under attack!"

  
  


-

Lexington saw it all through a veil of cold, calculative self-evaluation. I should never have involved Alicia. Blood splashed against the solid plexiglas window of his office; it dripped across the bar, as men and women moving with a military precision tore his club, his creation, apart. His patronage scattered like cattle, like sheep. They were cut down just as quickly. Iron, silver, and magickally-enhanced rounds were obviously being used. Lex could even see the occasional flash of high-powered energy cannons, only visible because of the heavy fog.

Now, people are dead. But they would have died anyway, wouldn't they have?

You self-important bastard. You thought you could do something to stop this, didn't you? Or to stop Starling and his compatriots from unleashing that beast? You arrogant little fuck. Sarah would be so disappointed in you.

His inner monologue decided to, without any prompting whatsoever, change voices. It whispered to him, in the cold recesses of his mind, in the voice of his long-dead mate, Sarah Conway. You've got to do something. Miyu, Krul, Dexter, Kenji...even Dog...they're all going to die if you don't get them out of here...

Lexington closed his eyes, leaned forward. The death-dance continued below him, in the pit. Some of the clientele had started to fight back; thugs, drug-runners, and the like, who all just wanted to live one more day. Garou tore into the men and women Starling had sent to kill the Underground Railroad.

I'm sorry, Sarah. It would seem I have to break my promise.

  
  


-

Somewhere along the way, they'd found weapons. And clothes for Miyu. So, instead of a skimpy towel, she now wore one of the skin-tight jumpsuits she seemed to favor.

And she sported a really, really big gun. A big gun that had been soft-wired into the faux neural network of her brain.

Now, they ran. They ran for the pit, where they could help, or die trying. Krul was sprinting out ahead of them, with Dog at his side, panting as she moved to keep up with her master.

Kenji sported a military assault rifle, one of the M-16-variants, he guessed, that he'd picked up on their brief stop at the weapons locker. Not for the first time, he wished he'd had the foresight to practice on the damned things before now.

No time like the present.

And then, with a suddenness that surprised him, they were in the thick of it.

Vampires, humans, werewolves, voomers - all moved in and around each other, going hand-to-hand wherever they could, shooting at anything they thought was hostile. So much heat flew, that Kenji was simply tempted to crawl into the corner and shoot whoever the hell won.

He stumbled over a flattened corpse. A garou shouldered him aside, completely engulfed in her Rage. Time seemed to slow and flow, as did he. The garou fell, her brains splashing out from the back of her skull as a silver round tunneled through to the other side of her head. Blood and grey matter soaked his face, and the twitching corpse fell to the ground. Kenji stared at it for an eternity; a second.

Miyu crashed into him, knocking him to the ground, sending them both skittering and rolling along, in, and over the blood and fluids covering the floor. Around them, people died screaming. The vampires yelled, riled up into a bloodlust as they fed on friend and foe alike. The garou were no better, attacking any who weren't other garou.

Miyu yelled at him, shaking him as blood and bile dripped from her fingers, her skin, her face...her hair. Kenji couldn't hear what she was saying. He simply stared at her hair, at the wet blood that had matted and clumped it together. He couldn't see any difference in color. She was still yelling at him, probably shouting imprecations, insulting his intelligence, degrading his manhood...

But all he saw was her hair.

  
  


-

Lexington smelled blood. Some of it was his; most of it wasn't. He couldn't smell much of anything past three meters, thanks to the sheer crush of bodies as the two forces met and tore into each other. He'd caught sight of Dexter, Krul, and the others. Even Dog. They'd all been doing fine at the time, but he couldn't get near him.

Vaguely, he remembered Hudson's instructions, from when he was a hatchling. Concentrate on what's around ye, lad. In close-quarters combat, you can't do anything for anyone in the distance. Especially not if ye're dead. Keep your friends close to ye, boy; but make your enemies closer. Never forget that God gave ye yer deadliest weapons when ye were born.

Lexington flicked the combat knife in his right hand into a slash-guard position, with the flat of the blade pressed against his forearm. A soldier, one of the seemingly thousands that had come out of nowhere, came at him from the side. Lex pivoted, bringing his left foot up and around in a hook-kick that caught the man across the hips, and moving Lex himself out of the man's path. The man stumbled, bleeding from the hole Lex's fetlock had put in his side. He whirled, stumbling as he did so over one of the myriad corpses on the floor. He slashed with the knife; Lex ducked under the attack, and raked the combat-knife's monofilament-sharpened edge across the man's stomach. The body armor he wore separated like tissue; the soft skin and intestines it protected fared no better. The man fell, clutching at his stomach, desperately trying to hold his intestines in.

Lexington brought the knife's blade down on the back of the soldier's neck, putting him out of his misery.

Another soldier, this one a woman, bumped into him. They whirled on each other, Lexington emitting a hissing roar as he did so. He dropped to three limbs, holding his knife-hand ready. And then he saw her face.

She looked like his ex-wife.

"You..." The woman breathed, her eyes widening. "I've found him! Captain, I've - hurk!"

Lexington took the woman down, pouncing on her with all fours, burying his fangs into the side of her neck, ripping away a sheet of flesh as he tore his mouth away. She staggered, and finally fell, gasping, crying out inarticulate prayers.

Lexington didn't hear her. His eyes smoldered their bright white hue, and his face twisted into a mask of anger. He felt betrayed; hateful, vengeful, all the emotions he'd tried so hard to blot out ever since she'd died.

The knife flashed, as did his talons and his teeth as he tore into her corpse, ripping away obscene amounts of flesh. Blood quickly coated his features, and his eyes, burning white and wild, stained with blood and tears. He screamed inarticulately, his own cries drowning out, for brief seconds, those around him.

  
  


-

They'd found him, still hacking and slashing at the vivisected, barely-recognizable corpse he was crouching upon, whittling away at bones and tissues with a knife that was so slick with blood, he could barely hold onto it.

Miyu and Krul had to pry him away from the woman's corpse, screaming and spitting obscenities in a dozen languages as he fought them. "Let me go! She won't leave me again! I won't let her do it to me again! Not again," he'd screamed.

Lexington was a bit more lucid now, thankfully.

Kenji found himself regarding his leader a bit more warily, giving the gargoyle a wide berth. He still looked...unstable. But unstable wasn't nearly a strong enough word. Lex looked ready to turn into a mindless, bloodthirsty beast at most any minute.

He hadn't bothered to partake of the shower the others had. As such, he still reeked of sweat. And blood. His normal green complexion had been blotted out, turned into the rust-red of dried blood. Kenji had never seen him like that; even the unflappable Miyu, who knew Lexington better than any of them did, had confided that she'd never seen that side of him.

Krul had practically shit his pants. Dog was hiding behind him, whining quietly.

Dexter...was Dexter. He'd lost his precious desktop, but at least he'd managed to save the portable. As for Lexington's tantrum, he seemed to be able to take it in stride. Kenji envied him that.

"We can't stay here." Lex finally said, placing a hand delicately, almost tenderly, on the remains of the polished-mahogany desk he'd had in the office looking out on the pit. "It's not safe. The police, the garou, the companies...they'll all send people to investigate." He sighed. "Our war here is over. We can't stay here."

  
  


- 

"Damnit, Richard, why the hell did you call me?! I was in the middle of putting the kids down for the - "

Lucinda never finished the sentence. The back of Richard Starling's bio-mechanical hand came up and around so hard, and so fast, that she never saw it coming. She crumpled, her personal data assistant falling to the ground and clattering away. Her hair immediately became unkempt, and her dress, once alluring, just seemed to fold and crumple against her body.

If she'd been human, the blow would have killed her instantly.

He hit me, she thought dully, her mind awhirl, as she held a hand to her cheek, red, synthetic eyes wide with disbelief.

"You have created," Starling started, stepping away from her to the window of his office, "an unmitigated disaster."

"I...I don't...what..?" She stammered, her mind in turmoil as she struggled to comprehend what was happening.

"I ordered you to retrieve the files and punish the hackers. I did not order you to butcher hundreds of potheads. The vampire clans are in an uproar; the garou tribes in this city have already destroyed three of my subsidiary companies, and the AD Police are beginning to sniff around. Do you have any idea just how much damage you caused by that little stunt?"

He hit me. "Sir..? I sent in Captain Sohryu's team...I thought..."

"Be quiet. Captain Sohryu is dead. Some damned vampire sucked him dry. His entire regiment has been obliterated. And the files were neither retrieved, nor were the hackers dealt with. I have been made to look like a laughing stock. I shall have to deal with this." He exhaled slowly, his voice getting quite low, and quite deadly. "Now get out. I will deal with you later."

He hit me.

  
  


- 

"I don't like it." Kevin growled, running a hand back through his short-cropped ash-blond hair. "I don't like it at all. We're just supposed to go after voomers, not -"

He never finished the sentence. Red, still in his combat armor, sans helmet, knocked him back apace with a backhand across the jaw. "Just who the hell do you think you are, O'Leary?" He growled, grabbing a fistful of the larger man's shirt and yanking him down to eye-level, growling the whole time. "When I hired you, I explained to you in no uncertain terms that I would be paying you an exorbitant amount of money to fight for me." He shoved Kevin backwards, knocking the taller man against the wall. "You'd best get your priorities straight, and fast. You're a mercenary, Major. You have been ever since you hired on as a bouncer at that pathetic night-club. Do you want to go back there, O'Leary?" He didn't wait for a response, grabbing Kevin by the beef in his upper arm and shoving him bodily towards the Machine Pit. 

"Now get suited up before I do something both of us will regret."

  
  


-

Kevin still didn't like it. Even as he laid into a series of file cabinets with the superhuman strength afforded him by the HARDsuit, he didn't like it. Papers spilled out across the ground, as did splinters of wood, metal and glass.

They'd been given separate assignments; Kevin was to trash the main offices upstairs while Christiana went after the actual factory in the below-ground levels. Red was supposedly creating a disturbance outside that would keep security occupied. Hopefully.

So, here they were, trashing empty offices, and likely robbing hundreds of innocent people of their jobs. This is insane. Kevin groused to himself, even as he armed a flare and tossed it into a stack of papers along the ground. The papers immediately caught fire, burning out their short lives. The rug caught fire next; the desks, the cubicles, the offices...none were spared the flames.

Kevin simply stood, arms crossed over his chest, watching his handiwork, as he felt his guts twist and thrash inside him. I can't believe I'm doing this.

The automatic fire-suppression sprinkler systems finally snapped to life, weakly, casting a pathetic drizzle of water down upon the fire. They did nothing to stop its spread; if anything, the flames rebelled against their aquatic overlords, vaporizing the water droplets before they touched the ground. The flames flicked up across the walls, over posters and bulletins from management. The ceiling caught fire.

I shouldn't be doing this.

Kevin stood and watched, even as the flames licked at his HARDsuit. They didn't take or find purchase, thankfully. Doubtlessly, he had the liquid metal core that made up the shell of his HARDsuit to thank for that. It burned; and it burned, and it burned. The whole scene before him, while thankfully devoid of the senseless violence he'd seen in the Royal Marines, nonetheless made him nauseous. And when he finally could take no more, his brain made his feet move. On some level, he wanted to stay, to shed his armor and join the fire's embrace.

Instead, he simply stepped out. The entire floor of the building was ablaze, thanks to him. All the records kept by this one company, which was just looking for an edge, were going up in smoke. Oh, they could likely be retrieved, but so much time, money, and effort would be wasted, and he...

He'd be a couple million dollars richer.

And as he came to the bottom levels, sullen and deep in thought, where the Boss and Christiana were waiting for him, he carried himself with none of his usual swagger or bravado. He just felt...empty.

He could hear the two of them talking in their usual clipped, precise tones. He didn't know what they were talking about, per se, until he looked up.

"Sweet Mother of Christ."

  
  


-

Angela Avalon sighed tiredly, hugging her arms to her torso and caping her wings about her. The nights seemed to get colder and colder as she got older. How old was she now..? Maybe eighty years old. In the old days, she would have been considered an Elder at this point, but the humans wouldn't even say she'd reached middle-age.

Drake was inside, playing on the computer like he always did. He never had any interest in honing his skills as a warrior; always too wrapped up in his games and distractions. She couldn't find the heart to be mad at him, to make him get up and get into the dojo, where she and Delilah could teach him how to protect his Clan and castle.

She sighed again. Face it, you decrepit old hag. She thought, mentally exhausted. You're bitter and tired. You're a horrible mother.

Deep down, somewhere in her soul, Angela wanted to cry. She wanted to just cling to someone, make someone else take care of Drake, maybe find him a father, someone he would respect and listen to...

She sighed again. You tired, pathetic old hag. You can't even pray right.

Angela leaned forward, resting her hands on the tower's single perch. Goliath's old roost; Brooklyn's, too. She remembered when he'd initially refused to take the spot. He'd called himself unworthy, not fit to take it over. She'd tried to talk to him, but he shut her out. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't talk to him. And when they'd made love...it had been hollow. Without emotion, or even pleasure, for either one of them. Every day, he just got further and further from her, up until the day he told her he was leaving.

And when he left, she actually felt happy. Finally, she'd be free of his baggage, and she could get on with her life, and she could raise her son as he should be raised.

But nothing worked out like it ever should have. Drake started drifting away from her too, and the Xanatos' just couldn't help her. Fox tried so hard to help her with Drake, as did Alex and his family, but...

"No one wants me." She breathed, so quietly that she doubted even the wind heard her. "No one cares for me. I'd be better off dead. I'm not worth anything. Not even the food it takes to keep me alive..."

Her eyes, inevitably, were drawn downward, to the city stretched out below her. In the distance, sirens blared - police officers on their way to yet another murder, another rape, another battered spouse...

And she couldn't help any of them. She couldn't even help herself, how could she be expected to help others? She hung her head, black hair cascading around her drawn, haggard face. A decade of tears had made her cheeks sunken and sallow, and she looked sick. Her eyes were sunk back into her skull, her hair tangled and worn.

And nobody cared.

"Nobody'd notice." She groused, her eyes inevitably drawn to the pavement, the sidewalk and street in front of the Aerie tower. "Would they even bother to scrape up the remains, or would they just make a voomer clean it up..?"

"Mom!"

Angela's head whipped around. Drake was yelling to her, for some reason. She could hear his heavy footfalls as he ran up the tower's steps. He burst into view, shoving the wooden door-cover aside with a heavy slam. His head peaked out, his face split into a gigantic grin. Energy practically radiated from him, and she'd be damned if it wasn't infectious. She forced a smile onto her face. "Yes, Drake, what is it?"

"He's back! You've gotta come see! C'mon, mom, hurry!" With those words, Drake disappeared back down the hole, scampering away.

Angela, confused, followed him with a bit more subdued enthusiasm. What the hell was he talking about..?

  
  


-

"Lex!"

Lexington looked up from his mug of coffee and whiskey, offering an exhausted smile to Angela. "Hey, Angie. Long time no see, huh?"

The two embraced, fresh tears of joy streaming down her face for the first time in more than a decade. They broke after awhile, Angela immediately swinging him into an under-armed hold and grating her knuckle atop his bald head in a classic noogie. "You miserable little green goblin! Where the hell have you been all these years?!"

"Gah!" Lexington wiggled out of her grasp, stomping playfully on her tail before embracing her in a hug. They pulled away after a time, Lexington dropping back to the couch and grabbing up his mug of coffee again. "Heh...grab a seat, Angie. Yer gonna want to stay awhile."

She did so, squeezing into the end of the couch next to Christine. All eyes were fixed on Lex and the various members of the battered and beaten Underground Railroad. Krul sat in the corner, dozing, Dog at his feet, doing the same. Miyu leaned against the wall next to the door, arms crossed over her chest, her right fist clenched tightly around the handgun slung under her arm. Kenji was likewise skittish, hands shaking as he tried to keep his tea from spilling. Dexter was in seventh-heaven, tacking away at a portable the Xanatos' had furnished for him out of seemingly nowhere.

"I'm going to tell you...all of you...things about me and about the world around us. I know you've all wanted to know these things for awhile, and that you've been taking bets, waiting to see who was right. I suppose someone will win the pot after I'm done." Lexington spoke quietly, forcing everyone who didn't possess super-human hearing to lean in, as to not miss anything. "You all know about my experiences before the Hunter's Moon; the Pack, the clones, and my gradual..." He trailed off, looking down at his hands. Both were artificial, as was the majority of his body. "...my gradual change. I look in the mirror these days, and I'm more voomer than man. And that doesn't bother me, for some reason. Why is that..?"

He waved it off. "That's irrelevant. Like I said, you all know about everything before the Hunter's Moon, and even before the Quarrymen's year of destruction. Everything after that...well. It's complicated." Inhale. "Things didn't change until about 2001, when I was petitioned for membership in the Illuminati. I was wary at first, of course, but I went with it. By this time, David and Fox were already mid-echelon members, and I knew that I could trust them - marginally. So I was installed, given their mark." He lifted up the shoulder-guard he wore, exposing his upper right arm and the eye-in-pyramid tattooed there. "They Illuminated me, and it was then that I began augmenting myself with biomechanics, increasing my strength, my speed...all my physical attributes were increased by several orders of magnitude. It felt good, even though it made Goliath nervous as hell. My voice changed, as well; became the vaguely mechanical, semi-emotionless incarnation that you all know it to be.

"I met Sarah, my wife...ex-wife...through the Illuminati. We hit it off pretty quickly. She gave me a balance I'd never known before, and she even thought the implants were kinda sexy..." Shrug. "Heh. That was my Sarah. She helped me through some bad rough spots. When she died...it was hell just to keep going. Night after endless night, I wasted away, plagued with thoughts of suicide just so it would stop. After awhile, with Alex, Dawn, David and Fox helping me in ways the Clan couldn't, I got better. I was never the same, even after my fling with another woman.

"And then Goliath and Broadway died. When they died...I felt nothing. No pain, no sorrow, nothing. My emotions just shut themselves down, to the point where I had just become a cold-hearted zombie. I disappeared for weeks on end, as you all well know, involved in my own projects."

He sighed, putting his face in his hands. "I'd been out shadowrunning, working as a freelance bounty hunter and mercenary. I hadn't killed anyone, but I'd come damned close. I turned my back, let others commit travesties of justice...and I didn't care. I just couldn't make myself.

"When Alex found out, he told me to go. He showed me the door, and told me not to come back. At least, not until I'd gotten my shit together. The Illuminati found me after awhile, crouched down in a whore-house in the Bronx, taking any number of narcotics. If it could be shot, snorted, inhaled, or experienced, I did it. And it never took its toll; funny thing about our stone-cold cure-all. Sure beats rehab." A snicker.

"Like I said, the Illuminati grabbed me. They cleaned me up, whipped me into something resembling shape. And they reminded me of just how badly I'd fucked up Sarah's posthumous trust in me.

"So, after all the rituals and the cleansing and other assorted...crap...that went along with me getting my act together, they gave me a mission. It was my job to track down and stop the voomer plague sweeping across the globe. I had the full support of the Illuminati at my back; they saw that the voomers were going to be trouble, and they were against the project now at any rate. After all, they'd learned their lessons where slavery was concerned, long ago in Atlantis, Babylon, Egypt...

"So I formed the Underground Railroad, with the Illuminati's backing. I enlisted Kenji fairly early, after he'd tried to hack some of the Illuminati's technological secrets. Dexter joined of his own accord, as did Krul; they'd been running together for awhile, the typical brains-brawn combination. These two are, frankly, the best slicer-bouncer team I've ever met. Miyu was the last to join our group, after Brooklyn found her, and we'd helped her back from the brink. She's still a hard-ass, as you can see, but she's got a soft spot for..." He trailed off, smirking. "Well. I'll just leave that to your various imaginations, hmm?"

"Shut up, Lex." Miyu grumbled, her chin sinking sullenly to her chest. "Wise-assed bastard."

Lex shrugged. "Masha." He muttered, slipping into a fractured elfin tongue. The word meant, literally, 'and you.' He waved it off. "At any rate. About three hours ago, our headquarters were raided by elite units from Starling Incorporated."

A chorus of surprised gasps emanated from the Clan's various members, save a few. Lex waited until they'd settled slightly. "We slipped out, more or less in one piece. That can be attributed to the ferocity of the club's former clientele, I imagine, and to the few Illuminati agents assigned to watch us." He snickered. "Never thought I'd actually have a use for them, actually..."

Again, he waved it off. "But I digress. Starling's private army came after us for two specific reasons. Two months ago, Kenji and I hacked into Starling's central mainframe, and sliced copies of two files. Decked their subsidiary drives pretty good, too. The first was Starling's Purple files; their compendium of every voomer under their manufacture that's ever gone rogue, and the list of those almost certain to go rogue. We were hired for that one; a small-time voomer-manufacturing company thought they could blackmail some money and technical specs from Starling.

"Obviously, intelligence is not one of the criteria we use to screen clients.

"I made sure that a copy of that file found its way into the ADP's hands, and I did that through Alicia. It was a...controversial decision, and one that some among us didn't particularly care for." Lex used no names, but the tightening at the sides of his eyes, and Kenji's tightened grip on the mug in his hands gave them away.

"The second file...the second file was the one that got us into the real pretty shit, to coin a phrase. I found it in my search for the Purple, and dumped myself a copy of that one as well. It was...is..." He sighed, trailing off, hanging his head.

"Starling's nearly completed work on a Galatea-class voomer."

The outcry of surprise Lex expected never came. Oh, the tension level soared, and Alex spat out a minute-long torrent of incoherent obscenities, but for the most part, silence was their only response. They all knew what it meant; there had existed only one Galatea-class voomer, and that had been Galatea herself. The original Sotai, based off the neural map of Sylia Stingray's brain, housed inside the biomechanical shell designed and constructed by her father, Dr. Stingray, was single-handedly responsible for the Tokyo MegaQuakes which killed millions, and the later MegaCrash, which claimed another hundred-thousand and the rebuilt city of Tokyo itself.

Japan was still recovering.

A Galatea-class voomer had theoretical control over the cores of every voomer it could come in contact with, whether it be physical or electrical or god-only-knew what other means. It could make them dance in a conga-line, or it could wipe humanity off the face of the Earth. And Lord knew nobody would be able to stop it, short of nuclear war.

Drake spoke first, breaking the tense silence with a single word.

"Fuck."

His mother promptly smacked him upside the head.

  
  


-

"Good to meet you at last. Forgive me, but my associates had informed me there were three of you. Where is your white-suited companion..?"

"Hung over." Red scowled. "As for this meeting, I'm afraid I cannot say the same of you, Richard Starling. From all I've heard, I'd have died happy if I'd never set foot in this office."

Richard Starling smiled from behind steepled fingers. Lucinda stood behind and to the side of him, poised and proper as she always was, though he knew it was a facade; she was an emotional wreck for some damned reason.

Christ, he didn't have time for emotional machines...

"Most people would venture that observation in reference to me, Leftenant." Starling said easily, using the honorific rank often associated with small-unit infantry commanders. "And quite often, that would be the last observation they'd ever make in their short, puny lives. More's the pity."

"So hard to find good pawns these days. Why am I here, Starling? Your intermediary knew the price, and she obviously passed it on to you. I have things to do; other contracts to honor." Red snarled. He was lying, of course; he wasn't the head of a mercenary unit, and his war against the rogue voomers of New York wasn't an advertisement of his teams abilities.

"I'd suggest you mind your tone, my friend."

"I'd suggest you mind a pair of angry mercenaries, Herr Starling. I ask again; why were we asked here?"

Starling's eyes narrowed. "Alright, Wyvern." Red bristled noticably, and Starling smirked again. "I'm sorry, I forgot; you dislike the use of your name. Very well, Leftenant; as you well know, certain files were swiped out from under my nose. You were hired to tie up a single resultant loose end, while my own people handled the rest. Unfortunately, thanks to some rather creative bungling within my private army's ranks, we've only managed to create more loose ends in the process."

"Hackers got away, huh? I heard about Gomorrah; the vampire clans are none too happy with your people right now, and the inner-city wolves are barking mad."

"Cute." Starling's eyes narrowed, the skin at their corners smoothing and tightening. "Yes, the hackers did escape my clutches. I do not particularly enjoy mistakes, and I do not make them twice. Therefore, I have given up my hunt of them."

"How magnanimous of you."

"I only want one of them. His name is Lexington Wyvern, and he is the one most responsible for the situation I find myself faced with." Starling's face wreathed into a mask of utter contempt. "He is now hiding in the Aerie tower, with that bastard child of David and Fox Xanatos. I cannot touch him at this time; my own projects consume my time."

Red scowled, prying the helmet off his head and scratching an itch along the side of his beak. "I'm well aware of your attempts to resurrect the Sotai, Starling. You can stop beating around the bush."

Starling feigned surprise; that this man knew of the Sotai was really no surprise. He often used that as a screen to protect against the possibility that someone might find out about the Children. "Well, then, my, uh...friend. It should come as no surprise to you that my time is not my own these days. So I need you to handle it. I want Lexington Wyvern destroyed. Not just dead; I want his Clan broken and bleeding, and I want his Underground Railroad torn irreparably asunder. If you can manage to kill the Xanatos brat in the process, so much the better. Questions?"

A red-taloned hand shot back through shock-white hair, streaked a light blue. "No."

"Does this raise any ethical problems for you or your team?"

Brooklyn Wyvern's mouth split into a contemptuous scowl. "Why would it?"


End file.
